I think it's funny you think I was trying to use that word.

Isn't Albertson's a grocery store chain? I worked for Walmart while putting myself through school & I can assure you that a lot of their workers were pro-union before they started their anti-union campaign (e.g: sending corporate employees around to all of the stores to enlighten employees on the pitfalls of unions). I can assure you that there are companies in this country (e.g: Walmart) that are (at least at the time that I worked there) so unethical that your daughter's situation probably sounds like a dream. I don't know anything about Albertson's (e.g: their history before the union if there was one) but I suspect that things would be much worse there otherwise.

Unions are especially necessary where governments have lax labor laws. My previous employer lied about the reason that they fired me. I was able to prove to the state that they were lying & was awarded unemployment benefits (despite my previous employer filing an appeal). However, neither my previous employer or the state was interested in getting me my job back. In non-right to work states they can pretty much fire you for any reason other than discrimination & there's not a damn thing that you can do about it (unless you have a union).

I know this is only one aspect of what you brought up, but.
After having listened to and read full transcripts of that conversation, I'm having trouble finding where all the things you mentioned took place.
He believes he is talking to a major campaign contributor and despite being baited over and over he remains quite professional and open. There is one part the prank caller suggests planting thugs in the crowd to stir up trouble, walker proceeds to explain why that is in fact a bad idea.

http://www.jsonline
Here is a full transcript of the call for reference.

In WA you can fire people for any reason, with or without cause. If you lay off or fire without cause the former employee is eligible for unemployment benefits. Forcing companies to respect some imaginary "right" of their employees to continue working despite the fact that the company no longer wants/needs them is absolutely asinine. People aren't entitled to a job, they must earn it and continue to earn it. And even if they do an awesome job, if the company goes out of business or if revenue declines and they don't need you any more, go get a new job. Hell, if they just want to hire their cousin Eddy instead, same deal. Employment is not marriage.

And that's why we have unions.

Jon'C's comparison to game theory is sound except for two assumptions it makes. First, that people act rationally; that is the flaw in game theory itself. It can't account for the fact that most people are irrational. Second, that the only benefit of unions is increased pay. His argument holds true for the formation of new unions. Try to unionize? No government protection? You're fired. However, existing unions will continue to exist. Once the union is established, it doesn't need forced membership to survive. The biggest advantage unions give is protection from that douche who wants to fire you just so he can hire his cousin Eddy instead, and many people are willing to support the union now to assure that protection exists in the future.

As for whoever's sister with a ****ty union whereever : Mubarak was elected. Mubarak is a jerk. We should ban elections.

2, 4, 6, 8, scott walker sucks

Anyways, goons having a pretty good time buying pizza and sending it to Madison for other goons and protesters.

I am so happy I only have a year left in this place.

It's kind of stupid to say that this is some big deal now. One state joining the 22 states that already have the exact same legislation isn't a big development at all.

I don't agree with this because in the long run whether workers bargain collectively or not they are still competing fairly unless they get subsidies. This is expressly anti-free market.

A more reasonable version of this law would allow workers the right not to join a union, but not force the union to represent them.

Also, I don't know how much influence he has, but the republican governor of Indiana opposes right to work laws.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2011/02/mitch-daniels-right-and-right-work-wrong

I think it's reasonable for society to expect employers to be "fair" (e.g: not firing employees who followed their guidelines). People may not be entitled to a job but they are entitled to life, liberty & the pursuit of happiness (their inalienable rights). These are very difficult to achieve in a society where the employee isn't valued & where they must keep up their end of a bargain (granted an illusory one in this country) & the employer mustn't.

So what if an employer is making $200,000 profit per year from their small business and one day due to a crappy economy revenue starts to fall. This employer has 3 full time employees and there's no longer enough business to support that many people. If they keep all 3 employees on, their profit the next year drops to $150,000, and the year after that $100,000. How long do they have to keep the three people employed when they aren't making as much money? Businesses failing don't necessarily fail because of anything their employees did wrong, yet they still can't afford to keep them.

All in all, an employer's "end of the bargain" is to pay the wage agreed on for the time worked. We are an "at will" state and I wouldn't have it any other way. If an employer stiffs you out of our agreed upon wages or benefits, sue them into the ground. But if they fire you or lay you off for any legal non-discriminatory reason, quit ****ing whining and go get a new job. If you can't find one as good as the one you got laid off from, perhaps that tells you something.

An employee is only worth what the price that his skills demand. There should be a strong economic incentive to develop skills in demanded areas. That has a direct effect on the effect and strength of the economy.

And it is important to note that you aren't entitled to happiness. Only it's pursuit in the way that you see fit. I don't understand what you mean by employers keeping up their end of the bargain. Employment is based on mutual benefit and continues until one party decides that this is no longer the case.

Many US unions are filled with incompetent lazy people who hide behind the union to prevent them from being fired. But in the long run, collective bargaining is only bargaining. If they unions don't regulate their own member's performance, union labor is not going to be used. That's a big component of why manufacturing continues to be sourced overseas. Wages aside, it's just not viable for companies to fight with unions in order to get employees to do their jobs. It's a shame that US unions aren't more professional, but in the end, they only have themselves to blame if their jobs end up going overseas.

No one is asking a failing company to run themselves in to the ground so that they can keep a few employees around. This would obviously be a case where an employer would have to let people go. I don't understand why you would think this is contrary to anything that I've stated. Even companies with unions have to make difficult choices when they run in to trouble (e.g: Ford).


I think it's important & reasonable for employees to feel a sense of security at their job so long as they're doing said job well & so long as the company is doing well. Even you appear to agree that we should have protection against discrimination in the workplace (presumably because you believe in fairness & equality). There are several other types of situations that deal with fairness that aren't covered under discrimination. This is where unions come in to play.

Thus the word "pursuit". My position wasn't that you were entitled to happiness but that you were entitled to its pursuit & that without properly protecting workers, said pursuit is difficult, if not impossible.


A "bad" manager can fire an employee that has been beneficial to the company. They can even go so far as to forge a reason & then to cover up the fact that they did so by firing you & eliminating your line of communication with their superiors, all in order to cover their own ass. I speak from experience.


Many unions are filled with competent hard-working people that need a union to prevent them from being taken advantage of. I think that we'd all agree that there's probably no system that's perfect.

I think your looking at this the wrong way, your obligation as an employee is to do your job, and your employers obligation is to PAY you for the work you have done. Benefits vacation and sick pay are icing on the cake. That's the obligation on both sides. You are not obligated to stay at that job and they are not obligated to keep you. Unless of course the law says otherwise, or your union.

The fact that there are labor laws & unions suggests to me that there are a lot of people that think that an employer should be obligated to do more than just toss you a paycheck 1-2 times per month. The world has changed a lot since the old days when people had some semblance of job security but that doesn't mean that they shouldn't have any at all. This is essentially what this issue boils down to.

Would you like them to wipe your ass for you, too?

Brian, I know you've been here a long time and you work hard, but we just can't keep you on. My nephew just got out of college but he spent the whole time drinking so now he can't get a job on his own. You know how these things are; we just can't afford to pay him and you, and, well, you look kind of wimpy so you're the person I'm least afraid is going to come back and shoot the place up.

Well, I'm sorry you don't think that's fair, Brian, but yes, you're fired. The laws on my side, you know.

By the way, we're going to be paying my nephew twice as much as you make now. Yeah, and he won't ever actually come to work. Since he's my nephew, nobody will be brave enough to tell me how awful he is because they'll be too afraid of being fired. You're sort of an example, see.

Well if you think it's that big of a deal, maybe you should have formed some sort of union? Yeah, if you'd done that, I could have negotiated a contract with them, and then everyone would know exactly what I've agreed they are entitled to. Then there wouldn't be so much office in-fighting over leave and who gets raises. And also, then I could tell my nephew no, that he has to start at the bottom like everyone else, and he couldn't be mad at me about it, because, well, there's a union. I mean, this is pretty simple stuff.

Why are you still here?

If someone I work for doesn't want me to work for them anymore, I will just find a new job. Why is this so difficult to understand? If a business owner wants to employ his own family ahead of anyone else, he should be free to do so. A job isn't an entitlement. It's not a right. Being born doesn't automatically guarantee you a job. Once you have a job, there is no guarantee that you will get to keep it forever. Get over it. As I said, if you want job security then gain the knowledge and skills to make you more valuable to the company than cousin Eddy. Is it hard going through life constantly scared?

:carl::carl::carl::carl::carl::carl::carl::carl:

what if there are no jobs

Surprisingly, or not so surprisingly, unions are usually better for everyone involved. The benefits of things like knowing that you won't get fired because your kid was sick that day far outweigh the bad apples. If all bosses weren't jerks and understood that the best way to make your employees productive is to keep them happy and pay them well, we wouldn't need unions. But so long as corporations care about nothing but today's profits, we'll need them.

Here's the simple rule : Make a quality product today, and you'll make more profit tomorrow.

And how do you make a quality product? You could spend a lot of money on QA and looking over your employee's shoulders. Or you could make your employees care about their job by paying them a decent wage.

Busting unions has two consequences. First, the people at the top of the company put more money in their pockets. Second, the quality of the products made by that company goes into the toilet. Ask yourself this : If you're getting paid minimum wage to assemble something, are you going to care that much about how good a job you do? Now what if you're paid $20/hr + benefits?

This can still apply to public-sector unions. But I don't think we even have to bother. For every example of a 'lazy union leech' I can find, the enabler isn't the union; the unionization is a coincidence. The enabler is some supervisor not doing their job, usually because they are lazy too. When some DMV clerk doesn't do any work, it's not the union that protects them, it's a supervisor who doesn't care. When a corrupt cop breaks laws, it's not the union that protects them. It's a racist police chief, or a mayor who doesn't care.

There aren't any unions that prevent the firing of an incompetent employee or one who just won't work, and there never have been.

As a member of a union in Washington state named Brian, I happen to disagree with everything Brian said.
Well, except maybe that I agree you're not entitled to a job just because you exist, but you are entitled to job security, and if your employer doesn't think so then you get the union to strike and suddenly they're no longer entitled to security.

-That's the point of a union, to have power over the company only from the bottom up.

Your union is named Brian?

Whoa there, I would like to introduce you to the California teachers union. You know the one where it is so difficult to fire a bad teacher who has tenure that they will sometimes be paid for years at a time to sit at home because it IS that difficult to fire them.

I'm sure there is a balance between strong-arm unions and none at all.

There was a typo on my Brain Trust application.

You underestimate nepotism in a company. Nepotism and cronyism is rife in my current company. Our one and only IT person would have to seriously screw up to be canned whereas I would have to commit less egregious acts to be fired. We're not in the same department so I'm not directly competing for his job so that helps me. But if the boss hires his son over someone seemingly more qualified, it's on said boss's shoulders if the son is a royal ****-up in the company to his superiors. So boss might give extra attention to his son to make sure he doesn't fail him.

Okay there are two ways to fix that. Unionize so prices for the company and consumers go up or get a job where you're happier.

I don't mean to downplay the plight of laborers and others but at some point you have to stop being the victim and do something to change your life if you're not happy.

That said, I call bull**** on all of you ****tards who keep insisting that everyone should be in a union. Do you own an iphone? Any sort of electronic device? Nike shoes? Levis? They were made in sweatshops by people working horrid hours in horrid conditions and who aren't unionized. Put your money where your mouth is and stop supporting these industries. That will surely help more than a bunch of whining and arguing on the internet.

It doesn't really work like that. The American dream of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps is a lie. It's extraordinarily difficult for people in near-poverty to work their way out. Take the extreme example of people in third world or developing nations: no amount of hard work is ever going to get those people out of sweat shops.

I would be willing to guess that unions representing people near poverty are not the ones in question here. However the power wielded by public unions MUST be curtailed. California is facing 500 BILLION in unfunded public pension liability. This is so beyond ludicrous! If a private union wants to run it's employer into the ground, so be it, this is not acceptable however, when taxpayers are on the hook for these pensions.

You are still confusing pursuit with attainability. That right is specifically talking about a person's right to do what he sees fit with what he has. It puts zero onus on anyone else to enable him to to that. If you have nothing to contribute to society, you do not have the right to force people to pretend that you do.



If you're skills have any value, you can find another job. If a company doesn't have good lines of accountability with it's manager's it will have problems. But in the end it's the right of a company to make it's own decisions whether they are stupid or no.



That may be true, but so it the opposite. Many industries are pulling out of the US because their unions are so difficult to work with. I have personally worked at a plant where the union workers couldn't be made to do their jobs properly, because the unions made it impossible for managers to take any disciplinary actions. Going back to "basic game theory" if you have no incentive to do a good job, why should you? Unless you just enjoy your job for it's own sake (Most people do not) you aren't going to put the same level of effort on it as you would if you were competing with a potential new hire.

Again, I have no problem with unions acting idiotically, they are just bargaining themselves out of jobs. I do have a problem if they want subsides to protect themselves from their own stupidity.


I guess when you have nothing to say, this makes you feel like you do. Unfortunately, most of us have graduated from the 5th grade so those kind of strategies are pretty transparent.



Do you have any proof of this? It seems to me that most difficulties with upward mobility have to do with social pressures preventing people from taking advantages of the opportunity they have.

What social pressures are those?

Yeah, that's really helpful for the tone of the discussion.



Support these industries and people will say you're a hypocrite.
Do not support these industries and people will say you're a self-righteous *******.

What about the lawmakers and voters who approved giving unfunded pensions to civil servants? A properly-managed fund could have grown and managed itself at almost no cost to the state, and the state could have taken out bonds against the fund in the event of financial disaster.

Why are you angry at the unions? Do you seriously believe that unions always get all of their demands?

Yeah, that's what we tell ourselves so we feel better about flipping burgers with a phd in applied psycholinguistics.

If I flip burgers really, really well maybe some day I'll own my own restaurant!

So are we talking about unions in america or unions in developing nations? Even in non-unionized shops in america, do you see the systematic abuses that you see in developing nations? If we're really talking about about supporting unions in developing nations I'm all for it.

Anyway, I do believe in the american dream.

I actually wasn't talking about unions at all. I'm simply pointing out that "work harder" is not a realistic solution. Individuals can only do so much, society needs to support them to an extent in order for them to be successful. I mean, do you think the reason the class divide is much smaller in say, Norway or The Netherlands is because the people there are less lazy? It's not that simple, and believing so is a cop out that avoids the real issue.

But that doesn't make you wrong

Of course "work harder" in JonC's sense is never going to work.

honestly im more pissed at the lawmakers who allow this crap. really i have no problem with a person who wants to work union. i do have a huge problem with public unions being allowed to give contributions to politicians. as it is unions are more bargaining with themselves than with an actual opponent.

sometimes however, i do have a problem with the public unions themselves, mainly when a city/state is having to make cuts or raise taxes all over the place and the union is still for raises and more benifits, such as what happened with the DWP not too long ago.

kind of as a side note, and im sure ill get flack for this... if a function is vital to the public welfair i dont think those carrying it out should be able to dictate the terms under which they will do so. and if a function is not that vital, maybe the government should not be involved in it.