Having a Happy Labor Day (Page 4): Labor is labor, can't anybody here just consider honoring the people who do the actual laborious work in this country without somehow linking it to...

DaleBrown

Labor is labor, can't anybody here just consider honoring the people who do the actual laborious work in this country without somehow linking it to union workers. We honor anything in this country yet when it comes to recognizing the people who maintain your autos, cut and care for your lawns, care for and teach your children, care for your elderly parents, the list goes on forever. Most posts to this topic only want to single out the " labor unions " without giving any appreciation to the bulk of the people that do the labor tasks in this country.
As I said the list could go on forever of the people that made this country what it is. It's time we gave real thanks to these people.
Just saying.

exakta56 Loc: Orford,New Hampshire

Overall, the history of unified labor in this country has been to improve their lot. Industrial interests have fought to undermine the hard won advances which today provide retirement funds to hundreds of thousands. Without unions, your voice as an individual probably would not be heard. Big business has a long history of pushing for legislation which weakens or more egregiously bans unions. Those of you who are so adamantly opposed to unions are either in the pocket of the rich or just plain ignorant of the facts. Please read the long painful history of how unions have taken the worker out of the dark, dangerous working conditions of the past to a place where legislatively forced improvements, sponsored by those who have bucked the political tide to help their fellow man, have greatly turned that around.

Rose42

DaleBrown wrote:

Labor is labor, can't anybody here just consider h... (show quote)

skylinefirepest Loc: Southern Pines, N.C.

I'm neither ignorant or in the pocket of the rich. The labor unions did a great job when they were needed but now they exist to enrich themselves. The laws now protect the workers and in the immediate past unions have shut down businesses with strikes and put themselves out of needed jobs. I have no use for unions and I don't believe many honest people would if they thought about it.

Shellback Loc: North of Cheyenne Bottoms Wetlands - Kansas

skylinefirepest wrote:

I'm neither ignorant or in the pocket of the rich. The labor unions did a great job when they were needed but now they exist to enrich themselves. The laws now protect the workers and in the immediate past unions have shut down businesses with strikes and put themselves out of needed jobs. I have no use for unions and I don't believe many honest people would if they thought about it.

Agree -

This is why I don't believe unions are helping in today's work place -
https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2018/07/23/uaw-official-guilty-corruption-scandal/818989002/

A couple of notes from the article:
Nancy Johnson, the one-time senior official in the UAW Chrysler Department, pleaded guilty Monday in a wide-ranging corruption scandal involving Fiat Chrysler Automobiles.

Morgan, one of seven people charged in the scandal, also pleaded guilty in February to a tax charge for hiding $201,000 on her 2011 taxes.

Nice income they make off the backs of their workers and the companies they rip-off...

Frank T Loc: New York, NY

Unions aren't perfect. I'll give you that. However, they are all that stands between the workers and the rich. Reagan's trickle-down economics hasn't worked and never will. If you think all the rights and privileges that unions fought for and won will stick around after there were no unions, you are sadly mistaken.
Management and the owners of the company will slowly chip away at your benefits until you are spending your salary at the company store and living paycheck to paycheck. You will lose overtime, you will lose vacation, you will lose sick time and health insurance. Learn from the past. No, unions aren't perfect but I'd rather have them representing me than a man like Trump.
I was a member of a union. I've got a pension and health insurance for the rest of my life. Others I see are living off social security and are on medicare. I thank my union every month.

skylinefirepest Loc: Southern Pines, N.C.

Yeah Frank...thing is...I've got a pension and health insurance also and it damn well didn't come from kissing the butts of union hoodlums. It came from giving an honest day's work to my employers. See, you union kissers like to think that business is against you and that's simply not true! Most business leaders are honest people and want to give their employees the benefits that they can afford. I ran a business for over thirty years and my employees were well taken care of and my female workers were given equal pay to the male workers. I had an ex-union guy tell me that he'd work harder if I'd pay him more and I fired him on the spot...if he wasn't giving me his best then he was stealing from me, right? For some reason he didn't think that was "fair". I had one union guy tell me that he worked less than four hours a day because of his union benefits...isn't that part of what's wrong with America that trump is trying to fix?

Frank T Loc: New York, NY

Working hard and Unions are not exlusive of each other.

skylinefirepest Loc: Southern Pines, N.C.

It is when unions are trying to tell me how to run my business and how to spend my money and how many breaks my workers will get a day and what I'll pay them and so forth...it really is simple...if you want to tell me how to run my business then feel free to buy in! My workers had zero risk in my business...I started it by myself and worked long hours to get a foothold. I took the money from my savings account that my wife and I had saved up. My workers were paid each week and I was responsible for that! Maybe the proof of the pudding is that I'm still good friends with my old employees and I've been retired for years. Business leaders are NOT out to screw anyone. And you have the option...if you're as good as you think you are and you don't feel as if you're getting a fair break then it's certainly within your rights to go take your expertise to a competitor!

Shellback Loc: North of Cheyenne Bottoms Wetlands - Kansas

skylinefirepest wrote:

...I had one union guy tell me that he worked less than four hours a day because of his union benefits...isn't that part of what's wrong with America that trump is trying to fix?

Agree -

Aircraft carrier in the shipyard for a $2 Billion overhaul...
Remember - This Is Your Tax Dollars at Work !!!!!

A shipyard worker sleeping on the job and being paid $35/hr was caught on surveillance video - 6 hrs - with no action taken by supervisors who also threatened to sue over the recording...

A shipyard efficiency study showed that an overall reduction in 47% of the total workforce would increase productivity by 85% - reasons sited - workers socializing instead of working wasted 28% of their time.

Whenever a worker or supervisor was called to task for non performance, the union grievance committee got involved with the lawyers stating that the overhaul was still on schedule and there was no reason for concern. If continued monitoring of the member continued, the union would sue for harassment -

We can thank the union for this model of efficiency and we now have our answer to "why are the costs are so high???"

DaleBrown

This is great, the initiator of this subject simply said " Having A Happy Labor Day ". That is it "Labor Day", not " Union Member Day". Yet some of the responses are by those of you who rode your high horse to the podium to tell everybody about the problems with unions. You still don't get it ( no wonder ), it is not a subject about unions, it IS about the labor force in this and any other country that work to provide for family and community.
Anybody can provide anecdotes about union workers all day long, however the stories can be provided about businesses and their practices all day long as well. Go ahead cast the first stone. Small and childish way to get a point across.
Try running your business without the work and services provided by your hired employees as well as those whom you depend on outside of your place of business to do what is needed to keep you running. It is these people that have been given a Federal Holiday of appreciation. It is NOT a day for you to bash unions.

Jack47 Loc: Ontario

[quote=Frank T]Unions aren't perfect. I'll give you that. However, they are all that stands between the workers and the rich. Reagan's trickle-down economics hasn't worked and never will.

Do you thank the company who sends you that pension as well??????

Frank T Loc: New York, NY

[quote=Jack47]

Frank T wrote:

Unions aren't perfect. I'll give you that. However, they are all that stands between the workers and the rich. Reagan's trickle-down economics hasn't worked and never will.

Do you thank the company who sends you that pension as well??????

That pension was part of my total compensation package. It wasn't a gift.

exakta56 Loc: Orford,New Hampshire

Shellback, Your nickname would suggest that you served in the military. Well, so did I and therefore you probably ran into people who abused the system, as I did. There is a bell curve for any situation, however what the unions did helped people improve their lives and still do.

lance0749 Loc: Canterbury, UK

Unions have their good and bad points. They want higher wages for the workers. Factories and shops put up their prices to cover the extra cost. Workers want a pay rise to cover the increased prices... ad Infinitum. If company bosses didn't get big (and sometimes unwarranted) pay and bonus packages, things would be different. I owned several businesses over the years and paid my staff a decent wage and had a very low turnover of staff. I was forced to join a union once, never again.