Has the line been finally crossed in the USA

Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in front of a governmental building and his act set off a firestorm in North Africa, this growing revolution is spreading and becoming more bloody every day.

Is the attempts by republican lawmakers attempting to break unions nationwide the spark that is forcing Americans to wake up??? There efforts to cut social and education programs to reign in the budget, but then they leave the defense budget untouched, is this ok with you?

It's been shown that these lawmakers are backed financially by both foreign and domestic corporations. They wish as always it seems to limit the rights of the people. The middle class is shrinking like never before and these people will not be happy till we are all living below the poverty level.

It appears they have convinced many people that unions are all bad, when we all know the government is bad and doesn't represent you. Yet people are following and supporting the government, or so it seems....

The situation around the world shows us the people are fed up with injustice and poor wages and working conditions and the price of the basics for survival while there leaders live off the backs of the rest of us.

Is this the battle that many people here have seen coming, is this the spark for this generation to fix the wrongs that have been aloud to continue for all these years?

The only ones I see complaigning are the union folks who don't have to pay doodly for their benefits or worry about losing their jobs like the rest of us do and turn around and pay these peoples salary and benefits with their tax dollars. The ones waking up are the folks who work all day and come home and watch these yahoos on TV screaming about being treated unfairly. Its quite ridiculous. The longer they keep it up the easier it will be to dispense of public sector unions where they don't belong in the first place.

Originally posted by HoldTheBeans
The only ones I see complaigning are the union folks who don't have to pay doodly for their benefits...

How do you react to the fact that benefits like this are bargained mainly by the employer as they comprise deferred wages. They say, in effect "We won't pay you now, but instead, we'll pay you later"?

Later arrives, and the employer tries to weasel out of paying. Another good reason for unions...to point these little discrepancies out to the Boss.

And back it up with job action, if need be.

reply to post by LDragonFire


All you have to do is look at how many corporations have closed shop and opened their business in China for cheap low wages. Corporations want cheap wages here in the U.S. Whenever someone is being paid a good reasonable living wage, the people who are being abused by corporations with low wages revolt. Instead of taking their anger on corporations, they become jealous of the people who are being paid reasonable wages because of their unions. Do people honestly prescribe to the fact that businesses want to hire people at a reasonable living wage? They lobby against minimum wages!!! Could anyone raise a family on $7.25 an hour? Is your 10 minutes of hard work without benefits worth $1.20?

Although I feel unions are needed for workers to get a good livable wage or help prevent being taken advantage by their employer, their are some changes within unions that should be changed. For instance, unions will protect lazy workers or workers that are completely incompetent. By doing this it hurts the image of the company, causes lost sales, creates added expenses, and reduces overall productivity. I don't know too many hard workers including union workers who enjoy seeing someone loafing off.

in the highly unlikely event things do kick off in the us this year I'm starting to wonder weather it'll be a 3 way fight.

unions vs tea party vs goverment. (to put it symplistically)

that would be a truely ugly war

The Union's are part of the reason many major manufacturing plants have moved off shore.

Government regulations have been a huge job killer. We just don't want the mess.

Technical advancements have eliminated millions of jobs.

There is plenty of blame to go around.

Look at Detroit and tell me to my face that Unions had nothing to do with it.

If you want the rest of the country to look like Detroit, go ahead and support unions.

reply to post by downtown436


What happened in Detroit is because of Globalization.

Lets face facts would a corporation pay a honest wage and benefits plus offer a safe place to work, or would they rather pay next to slave wages no benefits with no safety or environmental regulations?

Nice of you to use the unions as a scape goat, from what I understand the unions worked with the government with the bailouts....

Originally posted by downtown436
Look at Detroit and tell me to my face that Unions had nothing to do with it.
If you want the rest of the country to look like Detroit, go ahead and support unions.

The cost of labour is about 10% of the price of a car. Asian labour is paid pennies on the dollar. Has the price of a car dropped proportionally? Who's pocketing the difference?

That's who killed Detroit...and the rest of the manufacturing sector.

But go ahead and blame your neighbour...it's soooo much easier than hassling your lawmakers.

reply to post by monkofmimir


The tea party is the republican party and there big government. IMO

reply to post by LDragonFire


When that man in Tunisia set himself on fire, it was certainly the shot heard around the world for all those living under despots. It better damned well make ALL politicians think a bit, no matter what party.

I think here in America, we are fed up with electing azzwipes who say one thing when they run and do something else once they are in.

Another thing: Why would anyone spend millions of dollars to get a job that pays 200 thousand a year? Because
they use position to their advantage.

It should be a universal restriction on campaign funding - no matter where the money comes from, or in-kind donations such as ads from MoveOn; the maximum a candidate can spend should be no more than ten times the salary of the position.

This would level the playing field so that billionaires like Bloomberg in NYC would have no more advantage than most other candidates, and remove Soros from the equation.

Plus we'd see less of their damned commercials.

EDIT: BTW, flagged and starred

reply to post by mydarkpassenger


Then where would the tea party get there money from???

A star for you...

Was that a solution?

You just never hear a good solution anymore.


reply to post by mydarkpassenger

Originally posted by LDragonFire
reply to post by downtown436

 

What happened in Detroit is because of Globalization.

Lets face facts would a corporation pay a honest wage and benefits plus offer a safe place to work, or would they rather pay next to slave wages no benefits with no safety or environmental regulations?

Well said. I've never been in a union in all my life. But I knew this would happen with all these business oriented trade agreements that have been signed over the past 25 years.

Why pay an American a decent wage, when you can outsource and pay some economic-slave a 1000 dollars a year?

Edit: BTW I am a registered Republican and an NRA member. I believe in Teddy Roosevelt's views and I'm also a Libertarian in outlook

reply to post by whyamIhere

Exactly the opposite.

And exactly the opposite.

In my view of course.

Originally posted by LDragonFire
reply to post by mydarkpassenger

 

Then where would the tea party get there money from???

Who cares? LOL

Originally posted by mydarkpassenger

Originally posted by LDragonFire
reply to post by mydarkpassenger

 

Then where would the tea party get there money from???

Who cares? LOL

Grassroots...astroturf...whatever.
Maybe those nice Koch Bros. could spare just a little more.

reply to post by whyamIhere


More than anything else, if you owned a company would you rather get a worker making 2 dollars an hour or 15 dollars an hour? That amounts to huge profits! Companies have used the same arguments against unions for years. They would rather settle for cheap and poor quality products if they could make an extra buck. Why is it that most corporations have contracted companies in India to be their customer reps? It's just simple "GREED" and a lack of respect for the common worker. If movie corporations and professional athlete owners can pay celebrities and their athletes millions of dollars, do you really think corporations like IBM, Microsoft, Procter and Gamble, General Electric and a lot of other national companies can't afford to pay their workers a reasonable wage? Why do corporate executives have multi-million dollar contracts? Why do they still get these outrageous contracts and bonuses even though their corporations will show a loss in profits? Why are we so stupid to attack our common workers who have fought for their living wages? Why shouldn't we demand a cut in our politicians salaries and benefits since they were the ones minding the store that caused all these shortfalls? We cut off our noses in spite of our face.