I'm glad to know my employer is all for democracy. Next time they want to fire someone, deny a worker's comp claim, cut wages or benefits, hold people for forced overtime, or any of the thousand other crappy things they do, they'll hold a secret-ballot election to decide the matter. When they propose to hire one of their buddies or relatives, we'll get to vote the guy up or down. When all the management people want to cut out early on Friday afternoon, we'll hold an election to determine if, and by how much, they get to shorten their work week.

And when they go bankrupt, they can vote on whether Unions are good or bad for companies.

alicemarie:

And when they go bankrupt, they can vote on whether Unions are good or bad for companies.

Yeah! They can all take their golden parachutes and retire to some Caribbean island (where there's no extradition agreement) and bemoan how mean those unions were to them.

The employer- the one who OWNS or has been put in place by those who own to run the business- should have every right to hire, fire or otherwise manage as he or she sees fit. Thats how the overwheming number of businesses ARE run. Your attitude is precisely why unions times have passed and they need to be abolished. Yes, workers should have a safe work environment and should not work under slave conditions like those prevelent 80 years ago but thats about it. The lazy, incompetent or simplly insubordinate should be fired without any input from you. A boss should be able to hire his family and friends and cut out early on Friday- hes earned those perks by being the one in charge

My people came to this country to get away from serfdom. Who's going to make sure that workers don't have the conditions they had 80 years ago. Most of those changes were won by unions. Do you think Henry Clay Frick went into the plant one day and said "You guys are doing such a great job that I'm going to give you a 40 hour work week?"

The bizarre thing is that most of the people who write this stuff are ordinary working stiffs not hedge-fund managers.

I completely agree with you Bill. Unions in the United States are on the downslope. I believe that 16% of all workers are in a union, and if extract the US Government workers from that number, membership is down to 3% nationally.

They're hurting and want the government to support this card check system.

Just look what unions have done to the auto and steel manufacturers in this country, just to name a few.

Bill Sullivan: The employer- the one who OWNS or has been put in place by those who own to run the business- should have every right to hire, fire or otherwise manage as he or she sees fit.

LeRoy: Garsh, yes! Now iffn I was the Big Boss Man, I shure wouldnt wanna hire no niggers! Why in tarnation should the guvmint have the right to make me hire niggers? Them nigger fellers our all dumb! There dumberer than good Christain white folks! Thats who I wood wanna hire!

Federal law, specifically Title VII of the civil rights act prevents an employer from refusing to hire blacks. Unions have nothing to do with it. You are evidence supporting the old steroetype that blacks are dumb, though. You do no credit to your race which has many great minds. Yours just doesnt happen to be one of them

How many blacks do you suppose can trace their ancestry to Scotland and Ireland, Bill?

Meanwhile, you need to go back and look again at what you wrote in the previous post. Just for your convenience, I shall repeat it here:

Bill Sullivan: The employer- the one who OWNS or has been put in place by those who own to run the business- should have every right to hire, fire or otherwise manage as he or she sees fit.

LeRoy: Kind of sounds to me like you are arguing that the government should have no right to interfere with a business manager's hiring and firing decisions.

You might want to be more careful about how you express your thoughts.

Everything any employer does should be expected to be within the bounds of the law. I didnt think I needed to explain that but apparently you are slow. Outside of those parameters, no, the govt should have no say in hireing or firing decisions.

If you arent black why do you even care about whether any employer might refuse to hire "niggers" as you offensively term them?

Bill Sullivan: If you arent black why do you even care about whether any employer might refuse to hire "niggers" as you offensively term them?

LeRoy: Shoot, yes! Why would any white person have ever marched in all those Civil Rights marches back in the 1960s? The notion that any white person would ever care about justice is just....so....crazy!

Your question says everything about you that we need to know.....

the bull:

I completely agree with you Bill. Unions in the United States are on the downslope. I believe that 16% of all workers are in a union, and if extract the US Government workers from that number, membership is down to 3% nationally.

They're hurting and want the government to support this card check system.

Just look what unions have done to the auto and steel manufacturers in this country, just to name a few.

Also, look at what the unions did to the financial sector, oh wait - AIG, Bear Stearns, and Citibank aren't union shops. Could it possibly be that steel and auto manufacturers were just mismanaged companies looking for short term gain over long term stability? Signed on to large entitlements for its workers because they figured they could always count a bail out or could probably find a way to renege on the deal? Why else sign these contracts?

Im proud not to be some bleeding heart liberal. Im here to benefit myself and those around me (friends and family). I dont wish ill on anyone- black or white- but I really dont care much either way about their advancement or anyone elses. Not my problem

As long as it benefitted yourself 'and those around [you] (friends and family)'??

I never cease to be amazed by folks who really don't care if the society they live in is deeply unjust.

I suspect you would have made a very good Nazi. ['Just following orders', you know....]

...not to mention GM, Ford, Chrysler!

Blaming "the unions" for the patent incompetence of upper management is just one more way for our American 'royalty" to shrug off its responsibility.

US automakers seemed to be caught flat-footed by last year's oil price runups. Perhaps they needed to keep pushing out SUVs when there was a market for them and money to be made. This, I understand. BUT... shouldn't they have had enough brains to see that that market wouldn't stay the same forever -- and maybe had some transformation plans on the shelf (along with some metrics for deciding when to start the transformation)??? And, well before that, shouldn't they have taken a look at just why Americans seem to prefer Japanese or German made autos more and more (even when they are no longer a cheaper alternative)? Heck! They might even have learned something from how the US-based Japanese assembly operations manage their labor relations.

Yes. All this stuff takes brains, planning and hard work. This is -- theoretically, at least -- why auto execs get those obscene compensation packages. Simply whining that "the unions" were actually responsible for serious long-term industry planning is absurd. It's a patent admission of management incompetence!