Healthcare is clearly insane.

My question would be “Why should the non-union workers be having to pay the insane amounts?” as opposed to why should union workers get a better deal.

(Healthcare really aught to be one of the few things the government runs. It’s the only way end the insanity, without allowing the poor just die because they get sick, or injured.)

Don’t you think that a man who puts in a full career to help a company make millions should be treated fairly, with, or without, a union?

I do.

But without a group voice, (union) you can’t get a large company to even listen to the discussion.

Being in a union gives you a voice against an otherwise unwilling to listen large company.

The company is a large group who frequently uses that group power to impose their will on employees, and a union is just a large group of employees working together to counter that kind of one-sided relationship.

Employees need jobs, and employers need workers. The two sides have to be able to work together. If you negotiate as an individual, you will be forced to take whatever the employer decides.

When the working class works together, those talks become two-sided. And they are forced to work together.

As for being unwilling to listen to negotiate, I think this is something that could be said of anybody. But I think tough negotiations are exactly what a Union is about.

The UAW has given back in each of the past several contracts with Caterpillar Inc. (My employer) So I know that The UAW definitely does negotiate.

Unfortunately, Caterpillar Inc. makes a habit of finding loop-holes in any, and every, term that they have agreed to, just the same as any big corporation does.

Laws get passed, and labor contracts are signed, to keep employers from being predatory to the working class, and they cheat those laws and agreements.

Outsource, hire part-time and temporary workers, and just plain find a fault in the way laws are worded.

Last contract, Caterpillar told The UAW “unless you want us to be forced to move the jobs away from the area, you are going to have to accept what we are offering in this contract”.

The UAW did accept, including major changes (less) for all employees, and Caterpillar still moved their entire engine-building operation.

In order to deal with an entity that is so satisfied to play dirty, you have to play a little dirty yourself.

Far from perfect. But, unless you are happier with Marxism, anarchy, or a form of slavery, then I don’t think there is any way to keep the owners semi-honest.

They aren’t going to do it themselves.

The country is bankrupt….

That sounds so familiar….

Oh yeah. The great depression is exactly what drove workers to eventually stand up to the masters and demand to get their fair share.

The only part of this nation that is going broke, is those at the bottom. If you were a millionaire before this recession, then you still are.

All penalties “trickle down” to the working class, while all benefits trickle up to the masters.

That’s how it goes when dealing with business. That’s the way bargaining is done. It is definitely the way the companies will play that game. Challenge everything, and you get your best deal.

Unions are also a part of capitalism. It is the free market of supply and demand.

The laborers have a commodity that companies need, and they supply it for a price.

The days of the companies setting all the prices for their own demands are gone for those with unionized employees.

Now, you have to bargain, as in any trade situation, with those who have the supply of the commodity that you require.

It’s exactly capitalism, and yet capitalists hate it, and have cheated their beloved capitalism for the communism of China to avoid it.

I don’t.

If they did, then they would all be unionizing.

But so many are just content to “take the scraps that are offered”, so to speak, and call those who have unionized “lazy” because they do unionize to get their employers to negotiate with them, for the things that both sides need.

It never ceases to amaze me how those who horde and acquire multiple private jets, yachts, mansions, and other million dollar toys, without doing a real day’s work, get the people who do the work that makes them millionaires, to turn on each other, and actually call the other workers lazy.

I honestly believe that it has to be some sort of submissiveness issue. The masses feel so inferior to the astonishingly wealthy, that they can’t even begin to stand up to them, so they take on the guy that know, who does the same kind of work as they do, but gets more for it.

As if it is only fair for all labor-level workers to be suffering, and it’s just fine for the upper class to go on just as they always have, reaping all of the benefits.

It’s exactly the kind of mentality that has kept so many middle-eastern people slaving away for their master. Fear of reprisal from the master.

And, when the masters do punish us by taking away our bread, (as with moving industry out of the nation) they get us all to blame the slaves that stood up to the masters, and let the masters off the hook.

Indeed it is.

As long as they are around, they will never want to compete with the private sector.

I am not a union fan I have first hand knowledge that turned me against them. The first was in the summer of ’66 when I to a job at KC Structural Steel as a welder for the summer between college. I was not paid scale because I was temporary employee only but I still had to pay my union dues. When I asked why they are not getting me scale wages they said unless you do you don’t work here. Not right in my mind. The second happen about ’70 my father in law was a union steward at United Air Lines. There was a baggage handled that had been observed opening baggage and taking things out then grabbed a set of golf clubs and they watched him take them to his car opened it up the trunk deposited all the loot close the trunk and turn around to go back to work security told him to turn his badge and leave. My F-I-L went to management and told them the union would go on strike if the did not bring the thief back which they did. His answer to me when I asked why they made the company take him back his reply was “he had paid his union dues” so they backed him.

I understand the company was the winner the only thing I did not like is having to pay the dues and not being a member of the union. The company did not keep the my union dues did they? I know it was not much money but being an 18 year old and being told I had give money to the union and not being a member justed rubbed me the wrong way. I might say it was in Kansas which is a union state and has closed shops if it was in Missouri I would not have had to pay.

The second one there was not a loop-hole the guy thought it was all over until the union called him up and told him to come back. My father-in-law is the one who told me that he was talking to management and said there could be a work stoppage if the thief was not brought back. First of all he was a mechanic and the thief was a baggage handler which I thought were two different unions but I figured him being the shop steward he had to represent all unions I don’t know I have never belonged to a union before even though I had to pay dues to one.

The second one, I will just leave to you. Because I have little doubt that you are missing some information, and I don’t trust your FIL’s words as fact.

But the first case is one where you are a member of the union, but the wording of the contract allowed the company to have temp workers, and as such, those workers would not be allowed the same contractual rights as permanent workers.

But, since the contract says that the company will not employ non-union workers, they get to have you paying dues as a union member, but you don’t get all of the benefits.

It is what the company wants, and, believe me, they absolutely know that the common ‘temp’ will blame the union for taking their dues, while not offering the benefits.

The whole issue is a war for money. On one side, you have Republicans and the richest, most powerful people on the planet, and on the other side, you have (some) Democrats, and the unions defending your interests.

And, as with any people in positions of power, in order to keep their focus off of you, you get them all riled up at other people, or even at each other.