Impeachment

[Gandalf]

A case in point, the UK used to build ships. A sunk industry. Others could do it cheaper and more efficiently and in decades from a world leader to a world bleeder. Unions cannot do a thing against globalisation.

[Master]

Unions were not the cause of the economy leading to a down turn and recession.

Strong Unions give workers better rights/pay/working conditions and I would rather that senior managers (fat cats) getting overpaid or even worse shareholders taking a slice of the profits.

[walrus]

Unions were not the cause of the economy leading to a down turn and recession.

Strong Unions give workers better rights/pay/working conditions and I would rather that senior managers (fat cats) getting overpaid or even worse shareholders taking a slice of the profits.

Master there is a big difference between public and private unions in the US. Public unions are the fat cats and have run our states into huge deficits as they are basically feeding the Democratic Party. I’m not saying the Republican Party hasn’t joined in to an extent but I worked for my state for many years and I saw first hand how it operated and it’s just a bunch of fat cats keeping themselves in power. Unions certainly did do some positive things for workers during the industrial revolution, the monopolies, labor laws etc back in the day but seriously collective bargaining has run its course and turned into part of the political machine, especially at the public level. Modern labor laws protect workers just about as good as any union. You can actually do a search online for state and federal labor laws and workers protection and get an idea of what I’m talking about. Some day I’ll send you a link showing you my states deficit and how much of that is due to the state union. And this is coming from someone who worked for the state for many years. At the union meetings they would try to start anti republican chants which is actually breaking their own rules but it was the union president doing it. By the way, my state is in debt to the union for billions and billions of dollars. That means everyone we raise taxes to improve roads, we aren’t doing that, we are raising taxes to feed the unions who donate to the politicians who will support the unions. It’s a big scam

[Master]

That sounds like an abuse of power by those particular Unions which is counterproductive as it is letting their members down. Unions do not want to bring down companies/economies because it hurts their own members.

Over here there has been an erosion of workers’ rights which has led to zero hour contracts and low pay. Yet the super-rich get even wealthier. I would rather the money be more equally and fairly distributed than it going to a few at the top.

[walrus]

That sounds like an abuse of power by those particular Unions which is counterproductive as it is letting their members down. Unions do not want to bring down companies/economies because it hurts their own members.

Over here there has been an erosion of workers’ rights which has led to zero hour contracts and low pay. Yet the super-rich get even wealthier. I would rather the money be more equally and fairly distributed than it going to a few at the top.

Ya I get you. I’m not saying it’s perfect here. Plenty of companies take advantage of workers when they can but too many unions, especially public unions, are willing to kill a state to keep pockets full. I’m not saying unions are inherently bad unfunded pension liabilities are sinking companies and states. Shit I’d love to see everyone make 100 bucks an hour. None of us are dumb, we can see both sides of the issue and they both have merit but when the unions can’t be be separated from politics and everybody’s goal is to stay in power and not have an army of workers but an army of voters you can see how that becomes problematic. If private businesses saw what they were really paying for with these public unions I think we would have a mini revolution but we are probably about 20 years away from that right now. I live in one of the highest taxed states in the US we have a nasty deficit and it’s all due to the public union.

[Master]

Working in the public sector has benefits of job security for relatively lower pay. The pension is better and so it should be for staff. I would not begrudge them having a decent income when they retire. They have stopped final salary pensions over here and introduced average payment schemes. This is a lot better than the private sector, which I have been taken over by and they will try and take these benefits away but for the unions.

[walrus]

Working in the public sector has benefits of job security for relatively lower pay. The pension is better and so it should be for staff. I would not begrudge them having a decent income when they retire. They have stopped final salary pensions over here and introduced average payment schemes. This is a lot better than the private sector, which I have been taken over by and they will try and take these benefits away but for the unions.

Shoot in many cases here the public sector pay rate is 2-3 times that of the private. And that’s just straight pay not taking into account all the benefits. Shit I had a car for a few years. But perhaps we are comparing apples and oranges I don’t know how you guys do things.

[El Kabong]

If Unions = Good then perhaps someone will explain Progressive "news" organization The Young Turks wanting to keep their business Union free.

[Kirkland Laing]

If Unions = Good then perhaps someone will explain Progressive "news" organization The Young Turks wanting to keep their business Union free.

This is a boss who wants to keep as much money as he possibly can for himself. You can call him a hypocrite, he definitely is but it's just another example of what I'm talking about. Hopefully the people working for him manage to unionise.

[Kirkland Laing]

A case in point, the UK used to build ships. A sunk industry. Others could do it cheaper and more efficiently and in decades from a world leader to a world bleeder. Unions cannot do a thing against globalisation.

I come from what used to be the biggest shipbuilding town in the world. You either worked in the shipyards of in a coal mine. My family were all shipbuilders or coal miners. But Polish coal came along at half the price and Korean ships at half the price. We were probably the world's first post industrial area. Forty percent unemployment overnight. We haven't found out a way to ameliorate these kind of problems either. It's going to happen in any first world country when emerging economies can undercut your domestic firms. It's one of the shittier aspects of capitalism.

[Gandalf]

A case in point, the UK used to build ships. A sunk industry. Others could do it cheaper and more efficiently and in decades from a world leader to a world bleeder. Unions cannot do a thing against globalisation.

I come from what used to be the biggest shipbuilding town in the world. You either worked in the shipyards of in a coal mine. My family were all shipbuilders or coal miners. But Polish coal came along at half the price and Korean ships at half the price. We were probably the world's first post industrial area. Forty percent unemployment overnight. We haven't found out a way to ameliorate these kind of problems either. It's going to happen in any first world country when emerging economies can undercut your domestic firms. It's one of the shittier aspects of capitalism.

True.