Industries/Government entities that are history

[SugaSweet]

The small three (GM,Ford,and Chrysler).Sen Dodd and President Elect Obama today did speak the truth about the upper management and CEO's of these soon to be extinct corporations.They should be fired.How true.The UAW President and union cronies are in bed with these people and would never bring this reality up during the Congressional hearings on the small three.They only have a few products that are even marketable.The IRS would be next.It should be streamlined to the hilt.Set up a three tier flat tax system,with deductions for home mortgage,children,child and health care only.This is only way the 'rich' will be taxed.The Bushes and Kennedys of the world have municipal bonds,blind trusts,and annuities to hide their wealth for all eternity.The US Postal (non)Service is totally antiquated.Get rid of it.They pay slugs $30 an hour to throw letters in cases(a $8 an hour job in the public sector) and have twice the adminstration/supervisory to employee positions that they have in the private sector.Six day delivery is nonsense.Unless it is an express piece or a registered(value) item,then I can not imagine anyone really impatiently waiting until a Monday for the "0% for six months","better than viagra",or "give to the one armed trombone players guild" J-U-N-K that fills a mailbox.I hate to see people who have gainful employment lose their jobs,but the days of the UAW and useless government agencies should be over.I will not even start on the military,as a War and Peace type novel would have to be written to cover its futility.If the new administration is really about change,you will see the USPS and IRS stripped to the core in 2009.Otherwise,it was just all talk.

[hippifried]

There's not going to be a national regressive tax. It's not the IRS that's the problem. It's the tax codes. The IR doesn't write them. You want simple? Use the EZ.

The auto makers will get their bridge loans & pay them back, just like Crystler did. The only reason they have to come begging the government is because the banks are on strike.

You can't mail a letter via UPS or Fed Ex for 42 cents. Nobody at either of those companies works for $8 an hour. Not even the janitor or the office gofer. USPS is everybody's whipping boy. Hell, I've used them as an excuse too. But the reality is that things really don't get lost in the mail, & 3 days on a delivery anywhere in the US is the norm. It's a lot faster with the proper bar codes. Every service outside of bicycle deliveries uses postal zip codes. They developed the OCR & UPC scanning technologies that everybody uses too. Every non-postal delivery service in the US combined doesn't account for 1/4 of the volume handled by the post office. USPS doesn't lose money either.

Unions aren't going anywhere. Nobody's going to take a massive pay cut. Over 70% of the total economy is consumer spending. Just who do you think those consumers are? At $8 an hour, you're still living at Mom's.

The only thing that's been promised by the upcoming administration is a change in attitude & priorities, along with a clear pragmatic thought process. I don't know why anyone would expect them to adopt a bunch of silly right wing policies.

[SugaSweet]

The USPS reported a 3 billion dollar loss last year.Sites such as FederalTimes.com report an even bleaker picture for 2009.Who mails letters these days?Ever heard of e-mail and paying bills online?Ok,I did mail two Christmas cards last week.I am not saying that the service the USPS provides per cost is not bad:it is quite economical.The reality is that the USPS is looking at a rapid decline in mail volume.If you do not believe that the UAW is not going to have to make tremendous concessions as a part of any bail out,you are delusional.If they do not they will have a new moniker:UAW=unemployed auto workers.

[Oli]

Suga, the USPS delivers more items/week than UPS or FedEx delivers in a year. Bitch all you want about it, it works fairly well.

LOL@ Hippie's $8/hr workers... :D

[Cuchulain]

slugs $30 an hour to throw letters in cases(a $8 an hour job in the public sector)

You seem to have a problem with middle class workers making a living wage, or achieving 'The American Dream' as we used to call it. The blood and sacrifice of early union activists brought us the 40 hour work week, overtime pay, paid holidays and a host of legislation protecting people in the workplace. Do a bit of research on Labor history. Workers were murdered, beaten and imprisoned for trying to get a better life for themselves and their families. Unions made things better for ALL workers.

Obama and the Dems could never have won without the strong support of Organized Labor. They won't be biting the hand that feeds them. Just wait for the howls of agony from the Chamber of Commerce when we shove Cardcheck up their ass. Even walmart might get organized. Won't that be sweet? This is gonna be a new day for American workers. The only thing that can stop us is the brainwashed $8/hour dummies who don't believe they deserve a better deal ( red state white trash).

[SugaSweet]

The early union and labor movement protected against child labor exploitation,unsafe working conditions,and brought decent wages to working men and women of the US and many other countries.My problem is not with unions.The CEO's,marketing and engineering employees of the small three:they are the ones who can not design,engineer,and market practical cars that US comsumers want to buy.This is why Honda,Toyota,and Nissan pay decent wages in their US plants for the product.Their product sells,by the way.You can not throw money at companies who do not recognize what the market is for the products they make.When it comes to people being paid four times what they are worth=USPS,it is easy to see why they will fall.The US public does not care about the USPS anymore,as they are an obsolete business.Unskilled labor does not demand what skilled trades pay(carpenters,bricklayers,electricians,and so forth).It is not a matter of someone believing in a living wage(which I do).It is a matter of a company being able to remain in business when they no longer produce a product or offer a service which consumers demand.I will not walk into a Walmart myself.I do not believe they will ever be unionized,and I bet bet Senator Hillary Clinton would never have thought is was a possibility when she sat on the Walmart Board of Directors.I shop at Costco:a company that pays decent wages,a company that is for the most part unionized, a company which has employees who want to work there,and a company which has a decent assortment of American made products such as the Kirkland brand.I believe it is better to offer employees some benefits to retain their services and to have an enthusiatic attitude.WOW!I must be a god damned screaming socialist!Again,my point is you can not save companies who have no interest in changing the product or service they offer to meet current demands.Buena serta!

[BrendaQG]

The unions are corporations. Like all corporations they exist to make money. They started out good, then got greedy. They sucked the companies dry of funds. They made the companies agree to provide benefits that no employer in history, (aside from the millitary) has ever given. (healthcare, and a good retirement have for most of history been the responsibility of the individual. We are all to blame to some extent for the state the world is in. Take some responsibllity. I am.

[hippifried]

The unions are corporations. Like all corporations they exist to make money. They started out good, then got greedy. They sucked the companies dry of funds. They made the companies agree to provide benefits that no employer in history, (aside from the millitary) has ever given. (healthcare, and a good retirement have for most of history been the responsibility of the individual. We are all to blame to some extent for the state the world is in. Take some responsibllity. I am.
Wrong. They're non-profit organizations & aren't corporations at all. There's no stock. They aren't traded. They're not owned. You shouldn't go spouting republican propaganda without checking it out first.

Begrudging working people living in the middle class is just dumb. Especially when it's somebody who's struggling financially, trying to pretend to be elitist.

One more time: Over 70% of the total economy is consumer spending.
Who do you think the consumers are?

[Cuchulain]

@SugaSweet - Good for you, and I mean that sincerely. I don't set foot in walmart either. If we get Cardcheck passed, we just might get those red state auto plants and walmart. Maybe the Walton family will commit ritual suicide.

@BrendaQG - WTF are you talking about? I won't bother to repeat hippi's excellent points. As for Unions 'making' companies do anything, it's called collective bargaining. Companies grudgingly provided the wages and benefits that were needed to stay in business. God forbid workers should actually get a fair return on their labor. Throughout history, management has stomped labor into the dirt. Sometimes, for brief periods, we get a little justice...and if you honestly believe that people don't deserve good healthcare and some measure of security in their declining years...

If you think the cost of healthcare is too high, blame the greedy scumbag insurance companies, not the Union man who works hard all his life and just wants his share of the American Dream.

[SugaSweet]

Cuchulain:blame the insurance companies no doubt.But...also blame the morons who smoke three packs of cigarettes a day and the diabetics who will not get their cellulite ridden asses off the couch except to get the Cheeto's and 1 liter Dr Pepper.Cardcheck will go nowhere with the auto plants in the south.The only UAW auto plant I know of in the south is the GM Saturn plant(Spring Hill,Tn) and they are hanging by a thread hoping their new models sale well enough to sustain the Saturn brand.Every time a union vote takes place at the Nissan plant in Smyrna the UAW is voted down by a 2 1/2 to 1 margin.That will not change.Nissan has never had a layoff in 25 + years and the pay and benefits are too good for the UAW to make inroads.A company like Walmart,I just can not see them becoming unionized.The problem is the nature of their workforce.Over half of them are retirees,students,or people wanting part time jobs.$9 an hour or whatever they pay is fine to many of their staff.The living wage concept,what do others think.Oddly enough,the most liberal(obviously not progressive) colleges in the US pay their custodial staffs horrendous wages.There have been protests at universities like Brown and Harvard.If I had a child of college age at the moment,I would tell them to think hard about the medical profression.Not just Med School and the Doctor route.I would encourage Nursing and Physical Therapy.The hospital administrators have not created a financially beneficial way to ship patients to Guatamala and Sri Lanka for treatment,but I am sure they are working on it.Thus,for the moment,these are hand on jobs with benefits in this country.

[NYBURBS]

There are many issues with unions, such as corruption (Mob influence for example), and in many instances members push for impractical concessions or working conditions. I am not referring to things such as safety requirements but more along the lines of say the painter not being able to move a box because the union requires a different worker must come in to do that.

With that said, the real issue is the government interjecting itself into the worker/company relationship. At various times government has come down on the side of management (police beating on strikers) or on workers (forcing businesses to negotiate or imposing contractual obligations upon them). The concept that the federal government was empowered to enact boards such as the NLRB is a huge stretch constitutionally. These are private contractual relationships that should be left to the private parties it involves. Neither entity should be forced to act in any particular manner.

[Cuchulain]

@SugaSweet - a few quick points:

No doubt people need to take better care of themselves. However, even if we become a nation of 'body nazis' (a phrase coined by the late HST), we're still going to get sick sometimes. If I remember correctly, the insurance profit margin adds about a third to the cost of healthcare.

Most organizing drives fail because of the big advantage management has. They can drag the process out for a long time and put huge pressure on the workers. Cardcheck would help to even things out. Whether it will make a difference in the places you mention depends on the level of dissatisfaction among the employees and how well unions make their case.


hospital administrators have not created a financially beneficial way to ship patients to Guatamala and Sri Lanka for treatment
Good one, heh. I'll just add that I know both union and non-union nurses and there is a big diff in job satisfaction.

@Comrade BURBS - same old argument we've had many times about the size of government. The NLRB isn't going away. Under a Dem administration, it will be a force to aid workers instead of management.

And finally, a tip o' the hat to the UE members in CHEcago who are standing up for their rights. http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN0745696920081207

[hippifried]

I am not referring to things such as safety requirements but more along the lines of say the painter not being able to move a box because the union requires a different worker must come in to do that.
Jurisdictional disputes among the trades are blown pretty much out of proportion. It's all pre-agreed to by contract, & as long as everybody knows what they're doing, including the management, everybody makes money.

But the UAW & other unions like it are industrial. There aren't any jurisdictional issues. Same goes for the mail handlers & even the farm workers. Anybody who doesn't know the difference between the AFL & the CIO shouldn't be spouting ersatz expertise on the issue of unions.

[NYBURBS]

I am not referring to things such as safety requirements but more along the lines of say the painter not being able to move a box because the union requires a different worker must come in to do that.
Jurisdictional disputes among the trades are blown pretty much out of proportion. It's all pre-agreed to by contract, & as long as everybody knows what they're doing, including the management, everybody makes money.

But the UAW & other unions like it are industrial. There aren't any jurisdictional issues. Same goes for the mail handlers & even the farm workers. Anybody who doesn't know the difference between the AFL & the CIO shouldn't be spouting ersatz expertise on the issue of unions.

Except I'm not speaking in the particular but rather in general :wink:

[hippifried]

It only applies to the crafts. It's a different mindset from the industrials because you rely on your own trade rather than your employer. Jurisdictional problems are a rarity, almost always settled by the employer, & a problem with management if they continue. Everybody gets along if the contract is adhered to.