Regarding overpaid union workers...

[WilliamPitt]

[Lionessa]

1. Exactly! K n R

[Scootaloo]

2. Exactly it.

The "Overpaid Union Workers" boondoggle is based on another boondoggle - "Americans are middle class." Seriously, talk to anyone. Almost everyone in America believes they are "middle class." From trailer parks all the way to summer homes in Gulf Shores, they're all "middle class," if you ask them. This is because they don't want the "shame" of being poor, but they also don't want the "elitism" of being rich

The truth is, the majority of Americans are not middle-class. Most Americans are poor. Maybe not impoverished, but poor. But so long as they think of themselves as being middle-class, suddenly those union people, oh boy, they're living life on a luxury cruise, aren't they?

It's one lie, built on top of another. We have to knock down the underlying lie; as this graphic is trying to do. The trick is to expose that most Americans are NOT well-off or living comfortably.

[TrollBuster9090]

9. The decline of most americans into pseudo-poverty was disguised by borrowed money.

If you ask most people who think they're middle class to calculate their NET WORTH by actually SUBTRACTING THEIR DEBT from their ASSETS they'll realize they're poor, and probably have a negative net worth.

For example, the average net worth of the average single black woman is an astonishing $5. FIVE BUCKS!

http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/news/us/study-finds-median-wealth-for-single-black-women-at-5-236905/

[jtuck004]

11. More, how we spent the borrowed money. Had it gone into investing in people instead of the pockets

of the wealthy this would be a far different story.

[JDPriestly]

42. Today, if you rely on an employer to provide you with a job and a paycheck,

you are not middle class. You are dependent class.

If you are three paychecks away from eviction or from missing a house payment, your are not middle class. You are poor.

If you could not pay a $20,000 medical bill without going bankrupt, you are not middle class. You are poor.

If you are over 55 and you have not saved enough to pay off your house or condo and retire right now, you are not middle class. You are poor.

That is how I see it.

Middle class doesn't mean being able to buy every piece of junk you want. It doesn't mean being able to afford a one-week cruise to the Bahamas. It means enjoying financial security -- at least enough security to live without fear of impending financial ruin should you face an emergency.

A lot of people who believed themselves to be solidly living middle class lives realized in 2008 that they were not middle class at all. Their homes were under water; their businesses had failed; they owed more on student loans or credit cards or for medical bills than they could ever hope to pay. Some of them still believe that they are middle class.

And so they vote Republican because they think that is what middle class people do.

But they are wrong on both counts. They aren't middle class. And no intelligent middle class person could vote for the Republican Party that is now choosing between Mitt Romney and Ron Paul for its presidential nominee.

[DaveJ]

70. Only a subtle difference in opinion

That seems to imply if you aren't financially independent, you're poor. Few social groups have ever enjoyed financial independence throughout all of history.

If you have your health and skills, there is a reasonable expectation that you can continue to work and pay bills from day to day. Retirement is another story. You can go from doing ok, to poor, if you did not save for retirement.

We are living in a culture of indentured servitude, that is clear. It is more of a paradigm shift that redefines what poor means. One who literally has no income and who's home is being paid by someone else, is definitely poor. But there must be some way to identify the group in between them, and the rich. I just say we're indentured servants.

[JDPriestly]

73. There are a lot of people in their 50s who are living off or have already lived up

their retirement savings. It isn't that they didn't save when they were working.

They did. But if you lose your job at the age of 55, you live up what you have saved pretty quickly.

The only thing that keeps the average American over 65 under a roof and off the streets is Social Security. That is it. Even if people have saved money in the bank, they earn no interest on it. And very few earn enough while they are working to save enough to live off the principle for very long.

There is only so much demand for the kinds of jobs that people can employ themselves to do. The average person will not make enough money to feed a family from his own business. Some will, but there is a limit as to how many self-employed people our economy needs. It isn't that the people can't manage their businesses. It is that the demand for the kinds of work a person can do as a sole proprietor is limited if that person really wants to make a decent living.

[DaveJ]

74. Fear and Slavery are sort of the core attributes of our culture

We are willing to become indentured servants for fear of the unknown. I don't use the term 'slavely' lightly, I think the 1% will push us harder with the constant threat of "well it's better than being a slave... be grateful you aren't (we can do that you know)."

The logical solution is the last thing we'll ever see happen. Free healthcare and housing. Damn we won't even see free healthcare in our lifetimes. If the U.S. somehow managed to provide those things, we'd once again be seen as the shining beacon in the global community.

In the meantime, our culture sucks, we're like a 3rd world country with certain cosmetic additions to hide that fact.

There are countries much poorer than us who still provide for their people and they are happy.

Ok, back to the retirement savings topic, people need to do that, if they can. People do not understand they need at least $1 million for retirement, and that is modest. A decent pension is equivalent to a million dollars in the bank. People need to save that much. I started saving late, and screwed myself over (not that I spent is, I just didn't have it to save). So I'll probably be destitute when I'm 55. But you need to make money to save. It's definitely not fair. Not everyone can be doctors and lawyers. I'd prefer to retire by age 55, but if I work later than that I don't mind, and age discrimination should be fought. At this point we need to save $20k a year, which doesn't look good since my wife's company is being sold and she'll probably lose her job soon.

I can't believe that there is not one iota of shared responsibility in our culture, that it is totally based on greed, which is the epitome of an evil society.

[JDPriestly]

76. You can only save $1 million if you consistently and continuously make a good salary

throughout your life and never have children or an emergency.

Pipedream.

My husband and I are the picture of thrift.

We always saved. But a million dollars -- you have to be joking.

It's rubbish to think that ordinary Americans, many of whom are out of work or working at low-paying jobs, can save a million dollars.

When we started out in life, a person earning $5,000 per year could live and save a little -- even take a family vacation once a year.

A lot of baby boomers thought they were saving when they bought their homes and invested in upkeep and improvements. If they are forced to cash in now, they have lost what they expected to use as retirement funds.

Lose you job and get cancer when you are 55 and your million goes real fast.

Most people have to wait to save any meaningful sum for retirement until they finish educating their children -- hopefully in their 50s.

We should all save, but most really can't save enough. And my generation paid something like 7.5% of their income in Social Security.

If we had not paid it into Social Security, we would have had to support our parents and pay for their medical care. It's now up to the next generation to pay for their parents -- us. It has always been this way. Nothing is changing.

Social Security spreads across society the burden that historically fell very heavily on the natural children of the elderly.

Don't rely on your savings any more than you would just rely on Social Security. Most people, however, find themselves mostly relying on Social Security simply because saving is not and cannot be enough.

[socialist_n_TN]

77. One quibble RE: social security. It sounds like you............

and hubby are baby boomers. As am I. We are the FIRST generation who actually paid into social security for OURSELVES as well as for our parents. Remember the raise in social security taxes during the Reagan years because we were such a big generation? They raised our taxes to pay for US as well as our parents.

What happened to that money that was supposed to secure that baby boomers could have social security when we retired? It was added to the general revenue fund and masked the loss of taxes when the rates were cut for the 1%. And of course for the unending wars and the benefit of the MIC.

For 30+ years we've paid for the rich to have tax breaks and the Pentagon could have their expensive toys. But now we've got to cut our benefits because they wasted it on themselves. Anybody wonder why I'm a commie with those facts?

[JDPriestly]

90. Agreed, completely.

[DaveJ]

80. I'm not joking

I messed up, should have started saving in my 20s, but my circumstances were not typical. I really screwed up, in extraordinary ways. A typical individual should be able to start saving in their 20s and combined with a partner, that can become $1 million easily if you check a savings calculator, with compounding interest and yearly contribution increases. I don't mean to make anyone feel bad. I'm probably not going to make it. I'm saying that, just because young people need to know it's no joke. Health insurance costs money. Elderly still have expenses. In another 40 years I'd say it should be $2 million. Sorry. I'm perfectly willing to contribute to a tax system that supports social security. Stuff happens that prevents perfectly fine upstanding people from saving up.

[JDPriestly]

89. Exactly. We all do our best, but we need to have something to fall back on

if our best efforts just simply aren't enough.

[MichiganVote]

3. K&R

[bluestateguy]

4. The only overpaid union workers are:

NFL players, MLB players, NBA players and California prison guards.

[canuckledragger]

7. don't forget the NHL too!

[ErikJ]

13. And Rush Limbaugh $40 million a year.

[bluestateguy]

18. He's in a union?

I didn't know that.

Either way, he too is overpaid.

[CTyankee]

55. Doesn't he have to be in AFTRA-SAG?

Or whatever it is now...

[Bluenorthwest]

56. No, he does not. Most of the political radio you hear is not Unoin

This goes for 'our side' as well. They do not use Union on air talent, nor Union crew.

[CTyankee]

58. I didn't know that! It's good to know, tho...

[nbsmom]

20. Please leave the prison guards out of it.

You probably think it's funny, but they are part of the public safety system. Schwarzenegger spent years (and lots of $$ from outfits like CCA) to demonize prison guards. In California, the problem is not with the prison guards. It's with the 3 strikes law, which effectively grew the prison population well beyond what it would have been given normal population growth and a sane justice system.

[Zalatix]

27. I disagree. They're still workers, and very badly injured ones at times, for our entertainment.

The real overpaid unions are the bankers unions, the corporate lobbyist unions and the corporate CEO unions.

[HiPointDem]

43. They're not overpaid in terms of what their industry makes or the ratio of their salaries v. the

profits of the bosses.

When you say basketball players are overpaid, you're saying the bosses should get more.

[TahitiNut]

68. The NBA players went on strike to get over 50% of net operating revenues as player compensation.

To compare, the average employee of S&P500 corporations receives less than 30% of net operating revenues in the form of employee compensation (wages, benefits, etc.).

[HiPointDem]

69. the players are both the workers and the product, and outnumber management. and they know how to

bargain, unlike most workers.

if most workers get less than 30% of net, that doesn't mean that should be the standard.

The result of these trends is that, in 2006, the share of total national income going to wages and salaries was at the lowest level on record. (See Appendix Table 3.)[3]

Some 51.6 percent of total national income went to wages and salaries in 2006. This is a lower share than in any of the 77 previous years for which these data are available.

At this stage of the 1990s business cycle, wages and salaries made up about 53 percent of national income — about 1½ percentage points more than today Each percentage point of national income is now equivalent to $117 billion.

Corporate profits captured 13.8 percent of national income in 2006, which is the largest share in any year on record. At this point in the business cycle of the 1990s, corporate profits were receiving less than 12 percent of national income.



http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=archivePage&id=8-31-06inc.htm

[socialist_n_TN]

79. I refer you to the OP...............

The NBA Players Association is NOT underpaid in their percentage of the take. I'd say 50% is on the LOW end of what SHOULD be paid out to the people who ACTUALLY make the product. I'd go 100% and have the workers own EVERYTHING.

30% paid out in compensation to the people who ACTUALLY do the work is RIDICULOUSLY low. And people actually defend this ridiculously low compensation for the working class.

[TahitiNut]

83. Agreed.

[krawhitham]

62. If the sports team is turning a profit then the players are not over paid

[kentuck]

5. For example...

Auto workers were making more in the 1970's than they are making today. They have lost wages and benefits for a few decades. When the union workers stopped getting raises, so did every other worker in America. And we wonder why wages have flat-lined for over thirty years?

[moondust]

24. And without organized resistance

holding the line on compensation benchmarks and exerting some countervailing upward pressure, that flat line is likely to taper downward over the next thirty years.

[TrollBuster9090]

6. I'm non-union, and it occurs to me just about every day. Fortunately, I'm intelligent enough not to

..not to let my sense of envy be turned to resentment and schadenfreude by right wing demagogues. Unions are the only group in America that banded together and, united, managed to stand strong against the forces of outsourcing, and the idea of being forced to defend your job against third world workers who work for pennies on the dollar. Union workers, and specifically public sector union workers are the only group in America that's managed to preserve the middle class lifestyle that we all used to enjoy 20 years ago.

The pizza analogy is apt. Three guys order a ten slice pizza. The first guy opens the box, takes nine slices, and then says to one of the two remaining guys "watch out for that union asshole, he's trying to steal YOUR slice."

It's NO COINCIDENCE that the economy was strongest, and the middle class was most prosperous, when union membership was highest. Please distribute this graph from Thinkprogress widely.

[Blue_Tires]

8. Thanks...YOU try explaining it to those anti-labor morons...

[jtuck004]

10. I've never seen that as an ad on tv. Hope to see it soon.

Maybe the next magazine I open, page 4?

Maybe I can have some cigarette rolling papers made up with it, and stick it on telephone poles, or down by the unemployment office.

[kcass1954]

12. Several years ago, I had a discussion with a muckety-muck at Ford about unions.

He was grumbling about all the good benefits that union workers get. I asked him what they got that he, as a high-level manager, didn't receive.

Health insurance - check
Paid vacation - check
Sick time - check
Health insurance - check
Paid holidays - check
Pension - check
401k and partial company match - check

The only thing he could come up with is that they get strike pay. Really?? Strike pay?? I had to explain to him that they didn't get strike pay because they worked at Ford, but because they chose to have union representation. ("If you'd take off that tie, join the union, and do some real work, you could get it, too!&quot

[lame54]

66. Just a little note.

Strike pay is not provided by the employer. Most Unions set up their own funds for strike pay if it is needed.

[ibegurpard]

14. The American public doesn't like unions

or are ambivalent about them at best. Another example of how everyone's been asleep at the wheel while they've been changing the terms of the debate for the past forty-plus years. We need to start demagoguing right back and people like Bill Clinton need to get the fuck out of the way and let it happen.

[patrice]

35. They're afraid of losing their jobs. Maybe a step toward a solution to this is EFCA 2.0? nt

[Suziq]

61. Oh Geesh - CDS at it's Best!

The all powerful Clenis is screwing up everything!

[aggiesal]

15. I say the exact same thing ...

to my Orange County CA. friends. (RW Heaven)

I tell them instead of complaining that unions get too much,
why don't you fight to get the same.

Their answer: "Because we should be so lucky that our company
gives us a job."

[Dokkie]

16. And how exactly do you suggest

non union members go about getting theirs? There are very few people hiring, and there are lots of people looking for work and all I can say is good luck trying to negotiate for higher pay and benefits in this environment. And this is exactly the problem, the unions got theirs so the rest can go fuck themselves and hence the reason for the resentment especially since it is the taxpayers footing the bill.

So thanks for telling us how you really feel about non union workers. We are in the middle of an economic downturn and the union guy thinks that the problem is that we are not asking for enough pay raise and benefits.

[hay rick]

25. First they have to open their eyes.

"...the unions got theirs so the rest can go fuck themselves and hence the reason for the resentment especially since it is the taxpayers footing the bill." If you want to "get yours" step one would be to stop mainlining sewerage from Fox News.

If you were paying attention to what the unions actually say and do (as opposed to how Fox and their ilk report it) you would realize that the unions first priority in recent years has been to make organizing easier by pushing for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act. This is so non-union members can become union members and improve their own jobs. If you haven't heard about EFCA before then maybe it's time to start paying a little more attention to your own future.

You can help organize or you can complain.

[Dokkie]

28. Ok, I understand what you are saying

So lets assume tomorrow 60% of US workers force are unionized with full collective bargaining rights and pension. Now lemme ask you, where will the money come from to pay for it all? Every now and then I see people on DU post charts about the decline of Union using it show the decline of wages and living standard in America. One thing the chart omits is the increasing competition coming from overseas. Poeple didn't all of a sudden decide that they did not like union pay and benefits, it is competition which forced the unions to disband.

The car industry is one example of how non union worker produced cars dominated(still dominates US car sales) and in the process killed thousands of union jobs. More people are coming to the table to dine in on the same pie. This is why public sector unions are the only ones still hanging on because they are insulated from overseas competition.

With the number of people coming into the office to submit their application, I can assure you that asking for a raise or complaining about not having a pension would be very dangerous to my continued employment with management. A little empathy from the part of the OP will go a long way

[hay rick]

32. We didn't get into this hole overnight.

And we won't get out of it tomorrow. So it's fruitless to engage in exercises that postulate that tomorrow 60% of US workers are unionized and then ask how the economy will suddenly provide a decent standard of living for everyone. The decline in union participation is the result of 30 years of concerted effort by the right- albeit with significant help from Democratic enablers. Repairing the damage will be a long, hard road. It will probably take decades to revamp our political system and economy to provide a better standard of living for most people.

Increased foreign competition is indeed part of the story of how we got here. Some of that increase is due to technological factors such as containerization, computerization, electronic banking, and corporate internationalization. But a large part of it has also been the result of political disasters- Reagan's destruction of PATCO, the signing of NAFTA and other free trade agreements, maintaining a miserly minimum wage, and the spread of "right to work" laws.

Little credited, but just as important in my view, is a revamped tax code that, in concert with reduced bargaining power for employees, has siphoned a vast portion of the nation's wealth into fewer and fewer hands. In the prosperous, high-growth 1960s and 1970s, the top marginal income tax rate was 91%. Now it's 35%. Between 1981 and 2007, the top 1% saw their share of all taxable income rise from 8.3% to 22.9%. This is an extraordinary transfer of wealth- real class warfare- and you won't hear a single word about it the media or on the campaign trail. The media is surely not "our" media.

This huge redistribution of wealth hurts working people in a couple of ways. The obvious way is that the money has come straight out of their pockets. While the rich have gorged themselves, working people have seen stagnant wages for over a decade. Meanwhile, the rich can now afford to buy favorable treatment from the political class. Now folks like the Koch brothers can pull $400,000,000 out of their pockets to invest in a single political campaign...

There's a lot of work to do.

[Live and Learn]

33. Unions don't only negotiate for pay and benefits

Last edited Thu Jun 7, 2012, 01:57 PM - Edit history (1)

They also help support and elect pro-labor candidates. You know, the candidates that help to keep jobs in the USA.

Union workers use to be critical in getting people registered to vote and campaigning for candidates. As unions have diminished so have voting rights.

You want the jobs back in the USA, then work to support candidates that will reward businesses that keep jobs here and punish those that don't.

And might I remind you that Citizens United is simply a union representing corporations.

Given that the United States of America is a union of states, it amazes me that so many people can fall for the rhetoric that unions are bad.

[Dokkie]

41. Please dont get me wrong

Union have done a lot of heavy lift for the American worker, it has ended child labor, overtime pay, sick days, etc etc. All I am trying to say is that the environment that enabled a strong union is no longer with us. The US is no longer the the unchallenged #1 producer of industrial machinery or automobiles which supported the union class.

So where do we go from here? try and grow the Union rank in the face of stiff competition abroad, do nothing or slowly kill of whats left of it ala Walker in WI.

[Bluenorthwest]

59. Then how do you explain strong Unions is nations that never were '#1 unchallenged'?

The things you see as prerequisites to fairness are not in fact necessary elements of an equitable labor environment. As the entire world community shows us, if we simply take a look.

[HiPointDem]

44. no, the idealized union guy thinks you're cowering in the corner saying "hit the other guy!

don't hit me!"

[Major Nikon]

48. I have some suggestions

First of all, the only reason we have unions is because people took the time to organize and elect them. The AFL-CIO and other organizations provide assistance for workers who want to organize. It's not that difficult, but it does take work and time.

Next, no union equals no contract, which means you are an at-will employee, which means you can be fired by your employer for any reason which doesn't breach federal and state labor laws. First and foremost, union contracts insure a fair environment for employees. You can bet the CEO and senior managers work under a contract. Why should workers expect less? A good union contract prevents an asshole boss from firing you just because he or she doesn't like the way you part your hair. Besides safety issues, this is one of the most important things a union does. As far as negotiating for pay and benefits, every good union negotiator knows the financial situation of the company and doesn't ask for things the company can't afford. If the company is doing well financially, the workers have a right to demand higher pay and benefits. Without a union, profits go to stockholders and workers get whatever scraps are left.

[WilliamPitt]

51. Organize.

[dinopipie]

17. America now has a generation who have grown up hearing NOTHING

but anti union BS all thanks to that POS Reagan, Some "Dems" and UNION members who also voted for him.

Workers are FU_KED now thanks to 24/7 anti union propaganda.

[nbsmom]

21. Remember, Ronald Reagan didn't just belong to a union. He was SAG president.

That was the beginning of his political career, being the president of the Screen Actors Guild. And he was the same dude who turned around and fired the traffic controllers.

[HiPointDem]

45. and he was a rat for the bosses the entire time.

Ronald Reagan, Rat Fink
BoingBoing details how conservative icon and dead person Ronald Reagan was once a no-good, low-down FBI rat fink.

Reagan and his wife apparently provided the FBI with the names of actors who they believed were commie sympathizers.

Because nothing represents conservative American better than selling everyone else out to get ahead.

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/04/14/ronald-reagan-was-a.html


he was also mobbed-up.

[Major Nikon]

49. He was also turning in his fellow union brothers and sisters for blacklisting

Raygun was an informant to the FBI and betrayed his union brothers and sisters. He was the worst kind of union president any union could ever have.

The controllers he fired belonged to one of only two unions who endorsed his presiduncy.

[mythology]

84. Oddly enough

he also went on the be the worst kind of president that the United States ever had too. If only he, George Bush the younger and Herbert Hoover could have taken that dedication to sucking and applied it to something more productive like moving piles of dirt back and forth.

[Major Nikon]

87. The funniest part is...

Nancy managed to get herself on the blacklist and she heard Ronnie was the man to see about such things. A little quid pro quo ensued and Nancy managed to get knocked up. The rest is history.

[Bluenorthwest]

60. Read and learn. Reagan's agent was Lew Wasserman of MCA agency which wanted to buy

Universal Studios. The Union contracts did not allow representatives to be producers due to conflict of interests. Ron was groomed and foisted into place at SAG so that he could sign the waiver that allowed the creation of MCA/Universal. This was just one chapter in the ongoing creation of the Reagan machine, they worked Ron with speech tours and crafted political comments until the Governor's mansion was in sight.....the beginning of his political career was when Wasserman told him he was going into politics.

[Blue_Tires]

57. It's not taught in school, either...

For some reason our history classes always went war to war, with the occasional in-between stuff...

[jp11]

19. Not really maybe but probably.

[shcrane71]

22. That will never be an opinion expressed on MSM.

They get paid too much to keep it off of there.

[RufusTFirefly]

23. Yup

[Mrs.Independent]

26. Yeah, that's why so many jobs have moved outside this country

[Shankapotomus]

29. That's why unions should be mandatory for

every occupation. When you have some in unions and others not, those not in unions are pitted against those in unions over taxes and inevitably some will resent unions. We don't need less unions. We need more.

[Egalitariat]

30. What else do you think should be mandatory? And how would we determine what is

mandatory and what is not?

[Shankapotomus]

37. How? Resources.

This archaic idea that is being revived and/or resurrected by the Right that resources are owned by whoever has the means to collect them and everyone else has to claw at each other to obtain enough to survive is contradictory to the maintenance of a high level group species. Why are we forming large "cooperative" groups with each other if we are going to act like a solitary species?

We determine what is mandatory by finding a basic level of comfort and distributing resources based on that level. In a group species, just because some are better than others at collecting resources than others doesn't mean they get to own all those resources.

[Dokkie]

31. Ever wonder what happened to private unions?

and why the only real union left is in the public sector union. They were slaughtered by cheap overseas labor and you can make every single worker into a union and things will remain the same. There is a reason for this and its not because people all of a sudden decided that they are against fair pay and a good pension.

[HiPointDem]

50. they were slaughtered by the same propagandists and lobbyists doing the deed today.

not by cheap labor.

air traffic controllers didn't get replaced by overseas labor. meat packers didn't get replaced by overseas labor. greyhound bus drivers didn't get replaced by overseas labor.

those jobs are still in the us. they're just worse jobs than they were 40 years ago.

[Selatius]

52. They're worse because the municipality went into bankruptcy when the factory moved overseas.

You can't outsource many service sector jobs, but you can with many jobs in the industrial/manufacturing center. Many cities that de-industrialized suffered terribly. Michael Moore's own Flint, Michigan, was once a union town full of middle class workers who worked in the factories, but when the factories started moving overseas, his town went to hell, and now it looks like a war zone with high poverty, high crime, and high unemployment.

This country cannot even manufacture its own consumer electronics without relying on China, a country with a horrific human rights record and a labor rights' record that is about as bad.

I generally favor competitive trade tariffs with the goal of equalizing labor costs across borders, sort of a labor tariff, and I favor offering generous subsidies to companies that use American labor over foreign labor. I would say it's a lot better than trying to compete with a workforce that is paid an average of something like 60 or 80 cents an hour, when you convert back into US Dollars.

I'm not totally against the idea of trade. We should trade with countries that have things to offer us. I'm just against economic suicide.

[patrice]

34. Read this:

http://books.google.com/books/about/Stayin_Alive.html?id=h9acQrZmpmAC

[patrice]

36. Do you know that Super PAC money can go to Unions too, so in fighting Citizens' United we are

also fighting the best weapon that unions have had in a long time, that is, if they can put that kind of support together, which itself raises all kinds of questions in Labor's divided family tree.

[hay rick]

65. That's a terrible deal for labor.

Yes, labor can raise money in super PACs. The problem is that the labor movement doesn't have a fraction of the resources available to corporate and wealthy private interests. Promoting the use of a weapon which your opponent can out-produce at a ratio of 10 to 1 or greater is a surefire recipe for defeat.

The use of the phrase "corporations and labor unions" in reference to super PACS is a right-wing frame that pretends there is a level playing field in raising political contributions.

[patrice]

67. It also exacerbates divisions in Labor's family that go back to the turn of the last century ...

of which the more recent ones are illustrated in the Jefferson Cowie book that I linked in this thread.

[patrice]

38. Is Flynn's exit from the NLRB, for leaking to 1%-ers, relative to Wisconsin outcome as interesting

as I think it might be?

[spanone]

39. i don't get it, don't republicans benefit from unions too?

my union has liberals and conservatives and everyone gets the same benefits.

[Fearless]

40. And it's just as simple as that. n/t

[HiPointDem]

46. and why isn't this a democratic talking point? why isn't our party fighting on it, instead of

cheering when teachers are fired in rhode island and helping the auto companies institute two-tier wage & benefit systems?

[HiPointDem]

78. crickets. watch what they do, not their fine speeches.

[Andrew67]

47. Regarding overpaid union workers...

[IMG][/IMG]thumbs UP

[October]

53. Succinct.

I well recall my (underpaid) brother railing against unions... my jaw dropped. He never saw himself as being underpaid. Mind-boggling.

My husband, otoh, is a union pilot and never backs down from defending unions. He's responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars worth of equipment (and lives), and they try to demean them at all times. His job requires perfection 24/7 as the "norm." We are so tired of union-bashing.

And I am exhausted from the emotional letdown re Wisconsin.

Thanks for this post. Simple and brilliant at the same time.

[Cobalt Violet]

54. absolutely the way I see it.

I want to be in a union. I don't begrudge those who are their due compensation.

[Ikonoklast]

63. United, We Bargain. Divided, We BEG.

No unions mean no middle class, period.

When collective bargaining is outlawed by the Oligarchs, we will slide into the New Feudalism.

[FiveGoodMen]

71. Now THERE'S a slogan!

[Gold Metal Flake]

64. But I read on DU...

...that the problems of labor are labor's fault.

[HughBeaumont]

81. Free-traitor, job-offshore-supporter, 3rd Weigh ass-kisser, that one is.

He's getting dropped in the Red-X Toilet soon enough.

[Jake2413]

72. Great point!!!

[TBF]

75. And this -

(with thanks to Starry Messenger)

[Initech]

82. There is one and only one type of worker in this country that's overpaid: our executives.

And they're laughing all the way to the bank. They're the ones who really took your job and sold it overseas. They're the ones who are overpaid. They're the ones to blame for our economy tanking. Fuck them. :mad

[Catherina]

85. Simple and brilliant

I wish I'd thought of that in the past.

[Bombero1956]

86. how overpaid were these people

[IndyJones]

88. But we can't ask the taxpayers to bump up the salaries and benefits of the "simply underpaid"

because their salaries and benefits are not paid by taxpayers. And as long as taxpayers who feel underpaid are paying for the not overpaid but making more than the simply underpaid, the the simply underpaid will not want to pay more taxes to support the union workers who do not feel overpaid. I'm assuming we're talking about government workers.