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Getbig Main Boards => Politics and Political Issues Board => Topic started by: Slapper on February 20, 2011, 07:42:23 AM
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Take the case of Wal-Mart. According to the United Food and Commercial Workers union (UFCW), Wal-Mart could pay each employee a dollar more per hour if the company increased its prices by a half penny per dollar. For example, a $2 pair of socks would then cost $2.01. This minimal increase would add up to $1,800 annually for each employee.
I wouldn't mind paying more for a pair of socks if it meant that my fellow Americans would be able to pay for good health care. That would save me money because right now Wal-Mart's uninsured employees run up hundreds of thousands of dollars in bills at emergency treatment centers when their problems often could have been solved more cheaply and with better results had they been caught earlier at a doctor's office.
And I wouldn't mind paying one cent more for a pair of socks if it meant that parents could be home at night and on the weekends spending quality time with their kids. That's a real family value.
Here's what all this talk about wages really comes down to: Would you rather pay 10 percent more at Wal-Mart and get 30 percent more in your paycheck, or would you rather have lower prices and an even lower paycheck? That's the real choice: We're either spiraling up into a strong middle class, or we're spiraling down toward serfdom.
Looking at the arc of U.S. history, we discover we've been on a downward spiral ever since Ronald Reagan declared war on working people in 1981. Companies cut prices and then cut wages so they can still turn a hefty profit. Folks whose wages have been cut can't afford to shop at midrange stores like Macy's, so they have to buy at "low-wage" discount stores like Wal-Mart. That drives more midrange stores out of business and increases pressure on discount stores to send their prices even lower. To compensate for lower prices, they lower wages so they can still turn a hefty profit. On and on it goes -- until the people working those jobs are no longer middle class and have to work two or three jobs to survive.
Our choice is not between low prices at Wal-Mart and high prices at Wal-Mart. It's between low prices at Wal-Mart with lousy paychecks and no protection for labor, and the prices Wal-Mart had when Sam Walton ran the company and nearly everything was made in the United States and people had good union jobs and decent paychecks.
The choice is ultimately about whether we want to have a middle class in this country.
Why unions?
Unless you are a CEO, you don't have a lot of leverage to demand benefits at your workplace. Every year or two, you might go to your boss and ask for a raise or an extra day of vacation, but usually you can't do much about what hours you work, what health benefits you receive, or how your retirement benefits are structured. Unions give workers that leverage.
Unions are designed to give workers a voice in decisions that affect their jobs. They allow workers to negotiate with their employers for wages, health benefits, retirement benefits, and good working conditions. In the best circumstances, unions partner with companies -- both have an interest in satisfied, happy workers.
Unions create a middle class by allowing you and me to ask for the wages and the benefits we need to become or remain middle class. Unionized workers earn higher wages, have better benefits, enjoy greater job stability, and work in a safer environment. In 2003 union workers earned an average of 27 percent more than nonunionized workers. Seventy-three percent of union workers received medical benefits compared with just 51 percent of nonunion workers.
And 79 percent of union workers have pension plans. Cons have slandered unions for more than a hundred years. Professional people have bought the line that it is unprofessional to be in a union, that only blue-collar workers unionize. People worried about their status and legitimacy -- like nurses -- tend not to join unions.
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Unions lead to bankruptcy, not a middle class. Unions, especially for govt workers impoverished the middle class by forcing ridiculous taxes to fund this craziness.
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Unions lead to bankruptcy, not a middle class. Unions, especially for govt workers impoverished the middle class by forcing ridiculous taxes to fund this craziness.
All you're doing in repeating slogans.
Unions do not bankrupt anything.
Union members ARE taxpayers.
It's the likes of you, and your creed, that are ruining this country.
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Blah blah bah - unions killed the auto industry, are killing cities, destryed the school system, add inflationary costs to everything, and are a relic of the past.
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Blah blah bah - unions killed the auto industry, are killing cities, destryed the school system, add inflationary costs to everything, and are a relic of the past.
Bullshit, bullshit and more bullshit.
Unions haven't killed anything.
Why don't you stop in Detroit and ask them who killed Detroit??
Come on gumbah.
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Let me guess? Palin and Bush?
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All you're doing in repeating slogans.
So are you.
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The thing you have to admire about libs is that they never get tired of being wrong and making fools out of themselves. Most liberals are depressed, unfullfilled, bitter, immature slobs. My solution: Liberals should become Rodeo Clowns. They would be happier and certainly would become more fulfilled. Also, many would cease affiliating themselves with liberalism because they would have a healthy and somewhat profitable outlet for their personality defects and stupidity while actually earning a living doing something productive.
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So are you.
I think you got the wrong commie here smokie Lou.
Pick on smaller prey or I'll light you up like a christmas tree.
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Got things to do now.
I'll take care of you hatas later on.
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Got things to do now.
I'll take care of you hatas later on.
The 5 year old boy you kidnapped deserves another few moments to try and break free to run to safety. You can address the beating you've been taking in your threads now.
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I think you got the wrong commie here smokie Lou.
Pick on smaller prey or I'll light you up like a christmas tree.
Bwahahahahahahaha! ;D Go for it.
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Can we agree the middle class is shrinking? Who fault is it? Both.
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The high cost of living and doing business as a result of rampant inflation, taxes, propertyt taxes, etc caused it.
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The middle class is shrinking because the left keeps generations of poor people from doing anything productive with their lives while actively inviting scores of illegal immigrants to do the same and leech off of the American tax payer. The left discourages upward mobility and penalizes success. End of discussion.
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Jobs that used to go to middle class people are also gone due to the fact that it is not economically feasible to create those jobs anymore here. Enviro laws, ue taxes, proerty taxes, payroll taxes, have all sent industry and manufacturing jobs elsewhere. Those jobs used to go to high school grads.
We also have a parasatic govt class stealing 50 percent of everything and crowding out lending and growth.
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Jobs that used to go to middle class people are also gone due to the fact that it is not economically feasible to create those jobs anymore here. Enviro laws, ue taxes, proerty taxes, payroll taxes, have all sent industry and manufacturing jobs elsewhere.
And they should sell their shit elsewhere too.
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Doesn't work that way in a global economy.
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Doesn't work that way in a global economy.
Too friggin bad.
This is the USA and American products come first.
Go sell your shit somewhere else.