Labor Fighting Back

[Jarlaxle]

You Republican cowards. You must not want America to be the leader of the free world anymore.

And anyways, you'd have a completely different opinion if Trump was president.

I'm going to look to see if you ever said we should not have invaded Iraq. Did you also admit bush lied us in? Trump did. Probably why you voted for him huh?

Answer the question. Again: how many of YOUR children are YOU willing to get killed for the Ukraine? Stop tap-dancing, stop deflecting.

 

[Jarlaxle]

I did a search and you never said we should have never invaded Iraq. Not pre Trump. Not during the Obama era or Bush era. You never said that. Fucking liar.

Uhh...probably because the invasion started nine years before I registered here. You stupid, boy?

Never voted for Bush.

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

You make a good point. Consider how things in America are done now. Where 95% of the top managers at every company are white males. And USMB Republicans are telling us it's all white men because we are the best.

Now you admit that most of those white men who went to the Ivy league schools who then rose up to become the CEO's of our Fortune 500 companies come from rich families. That's how it usually works. It's not what you know it's who you know. And there is a good old boys network.

I find it hard to believe that diversifying will result in lower corporate profits. I refuse to believe in a country as diverse as ours that we are better off letting white men control 95% of our corporations.

And USMB white men think they benefit from this good old boys thing but they don't because they weren't born into rich families.

I know rich kids. My nephews are rich but not compared to some of their classmates. Those kids are going off to Harvard, Yale, Duke, University of Michigan and they will be put on a fast track to upper management. Sure a nobody can become a CEO of a fortune 500 company too but look where most of them went to school.

Harvard is just one example

Harvard University boasts the most alumni who are now a Fortune 500 CEO, with 41 having attended Harvard for their undergraduate or graduate degrees. Thirty-five of the CEOs earned a graduate degree at Harvard University and 9 of the CEOs went there for their undergrad, some of which attended Harvard for both.

Harvard diversity statistics shows that there are 39.7 percent white students enrolled at Harvard University, 13.7 percent Asian students, 9.46 percent Hispanic or Latino students, 6.56 percent Black or African American students

And Republicans want to make it whiter.

A Country Where Success Is Based on Birth and Not Worth Is Clutching a Death Rattle

You're under the Preppies' spell if you associate Birth-Class Supremacy with White Supremacy. The richkids themselves believe that their Daddy's Money entitles them to the attitude that they have evolved into a separate and superior race (Social Darwinism).

So real Whites should expel them, just like we have expelled their Leftist classmates. Believing that one ideology or the other is "richkids on our side" is the road back to serfdom.

 

[sealybobo]

A Country Where Success Is Based on Birth and Not Worth Is Clutching a Death Rattle

You're under the Preppies' spell if you associate Birth-Class Supremacy with White Supremacy. The richkids themselves believe that their Daddy's Money entitles them to the attitude that they have evolved into a separate and superior race (Social Darwinism).

So real Whites should expel them, just like we have expelled their Leftist classmates. Believing that one ideology or the other is "richkids on our side" is the road back to serfdom.

Oh we are already there. Look at how much the gap between the rich and poor has gotten since reagan.

Look at how much worse the middle class is doing today compared to the baby boomers who had cheap college, unions and pensions and social security and medicare. Good time to be an American.

Look how unaffordable college is for all of us but my nephews had college paid for long before they turned 18. One's even going to go to law school. No debt. Daddy paid. And he will be a titan of industry. He will do free interns because he can afford to and make great connections. I couldn't intern. When I went to work it had to pay something.

What percent of Americans can't come up with $400 in an emergency? 37%?

What percent of Americans make over $100K? 18%?

Most of the people you know who you think are middle class, are probably really lower middle now. They have a cell phone and nice shoes so they seem middle class but they aren't really. Probably saving nothing for retirement. That's not middle class.

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

Look how unaffordable college is for all of us but my nephews had college paid for long before they turned 18. One's even going to go to law school. No debt. Daddy paid. And he will be a titan of industry. He will do free interns because he can afford to and make great connections. I couldn't intern. When I went to work it had to pay something.

Networking Is Not Working

The interns who make the best connections have to pay the firms that hire them. They are advised to get the money for that out of their trust funds.

Cheap or even free tuition is no bargain. The student has to give up the income that he would have gotten from a full-time job. So this obsolete educational system amounts to buying a job, which more and more means having your Daddy buy it for you. If the truth could be told, that puts inferior people in superior positions. Everyone else has to suffer from the privileged incompetence at the top.

 

[Ringo]

 

[Grumblenuts]

Hello Grumblenuts. There have been no replies in this thread for 120 days.
Content in this thread may no longer be relevant.
Perhaps it would be better to start a new thread instead.

Nah, thanks. This'll do just fine. Here's a lovely Update on labor fighting back, featuring everyone's favorite economic expert, Dr. Wolff interviewing David Van Deusen, a socialist and leader of the Vermont AFL-CIO:

 

[Grumblenuts]

Any thoughts sealybobo?

 

[sealybobo]

Any thoughts sealybobo?

This is how you fix the middle class. Unregulated Free Market Capitalism didn't create the middle class. Liberal policies did. If not for liberal policies and government, we see what has happened to the middle class from 1978 to NOW the middle class has fallen apart. Because unions went from 35% to 5% of our workforce. So labor has no seat at the table today. Labor doesn't have a seat at the Walmart Table.

 

[sealybobo]

Any thoughts sealybobo?

From 1978 to now CEO pay went up 1322%. Our wages only 18%. This is what happens when labor doesn't have a seat at the table.

Republicans will say "liar!" Okay, it was only Fortune 500 CEO's. But that trickles down. Same way unions trickle sideways. You don't have to be in a union to benefit from unions. Just the fear of unionization drives wages up. That's why I'm happy to know unions won big last year. Companies are shitting themselves.

 

[initforme]

Until emoyers have a hard time finding emoyees things will go against workers. Making employers compete ultra hard is what is needed.

 

[sealybobo]

Until emoyers have a hard time finding emoyees things will go against workers. Making employers compete ultra hard is what is needed.

We've already had that. Don't you remember during and soon after the pandemic we had 10 million unfilled jobs? Many of them were at Wendy's, McD, Taco Bell, Starbucks, Walmart. They can't find enough workers they say. So how come wages stalled? I'll tell you why. Because companies aren't willing to go any higher no matter how much they could use the help. Stubborn. That hurts profits. They view labor as an expense.

Number 2 reason. Wages were going high. Too high. That's part of inflation. So the Feds raised interest rates to fix inflation.
Republicans don't like to admit Trump caused the inflation too. And there is pain with fixing inflation. The poor hurt the most during the fix. We're dealing with it right now. But consider that fact, I'd say we're doing extremely well. Stock market, unemployment, not in a recession in fact adding jobs every month, inflation coming down.

Republicans know Biden is doing a great job.

"I think Bill Clinton was a great president,’" Trump said in the interview that was conducted shortly after the 2008 presidential election on NY1's "Inside City Hall" program.

"You know, you look at the country then. The economy was doing great. Look at what happened during the Clinton years. I mean we had no war, the economy was doing great, everybody was happy. A lot of people hated him because they were jealous as hell,’" Trump said.

 

[Grumblenuts]

Companies are shitting themselves.

Ew, what a mess!

Hopefully, workers shall keep gaining more respect for themselves and their fellows.

"You know, you look at the country then. The economy was doing great. Look at what happened during the Clinton years. I mean we had no war, the economy was doing great, everybody was happy. A lot of people hated him because they were jealous as hell,’" Trump said.

He's so deep and well informed.

 

[hadit]

This is how you fix the middle class. Unregulated Free Market Capitalism didn't create the middle class. Liberal policies did. If not for liberal policies and government, we see what has happened to the middle class from 1978 to NOW the middle class has fallen apart. Because unions went from 35% to 5% of our workforce. So labor has no seat at the table today. Labor doesn't have a seat at the Walmart Table.

There are a couple of reasons for that:

1. During that same time frame, the US went from the big dog on the manufacturing block to one of several powerful competitors. From 1945 to 1978 the middle class grew, because we were the only serious manufacturer on the planet not devastated by WWII. What happened in the 70's? Foreign competition caught up, rebuilding after the war, and they caught American companies asleep at the wheel.
2. Unions are victims of their own success, because virtually all of the big-ticket items they fought for have been written into law. 5-day work weeks? Yup. Safety regulations? Yup. Mandated breaks? Yup. Overtime pay? Yup. And the list goes on. What do they have to fight for today? Basically, more money, and companies that before could write their own ticket have to compete with foreign companies offering the same products at higher quality and vastly lower prices. They can't automatically give huge pay raises and lavish retirement packages anymore.

Until American workers and labor unions deal with the reality that they have to compete with cheap foreign labor, we will never again see the days when a man could graduate high school, go work the assembly line, buy a house, let his wife stay home, put his kids through college, and retire at 65. Not going to happen.

 

[sealybobo]

There are a couple of reasons for that:

1. During that same time frame, the US went from the big dog on the manufacturing block to one of several powerful competitors. From 1945 to 1978 the middle class grew, because we were the only serious manufacturer on the planet not devastated by WWII. What happened in the 70's? Foreign competition caught up, rebuilding after the war, and they caught American companies asleep at the wheel.
2. Unions are victims of their own success, because virtually all of the big-ticket items they fought for have been written into law. 5-day work weeks? Yup. Safety regulations? Yup. Mandated breaks? Yup. Overtime pay? Yup. And the list goes on. What do they have to fight for today? Basically, more money, and companies that before could write their own ticket have to compete with foreign companies offering the same products at higher quality and vastly lower prices. They can't automatically give huge pay raises and lavish retirement packages anymore.

Until American workers and labor unions deal with the reality that they have to compete with cheap foreign labor, we will never again see the days when a man could graduate high school, go work the assembly line, buy a house, let his wife stay home, put his kids through college, and retire at 65. Not going to happen.

1. Very true. Can't argue
2. True. Unions didn't clean their act up and made it easy to send their jobs overseas. Trump's uneducated blue collar deplorables really are losers. Trump said he doesn't care about them he just wants their votes. Right to their face.

Guess what? Workers in China and Mexico are organizing. Partially why now American companies want to bring jobs back home. So now that those workers have wised up, perhaps so should we.

My brother used to be a VP in manufacturing. He said you can open up a plant in Sandusky Ohio but who's going to work those jobs for $15 hr? So you better start hiring illegals who are coming from Mexico to work those factories.

 

[hadit]

1. Very true. Can't argue
2. True. Unions didn't clean their act up and made it easy to send their jobs overseas. Trump's uneducated blue collar deplorables really are losers. Trump said he doesn't care about them he just wants their votes. Right to their face.

Guess what? Workers in China and Mexico are organizing. Partially why now American companies want to bring jobs back home. So now that those workers have wised up, perhaps so should we.

My brother used to be a VP in manufacturing. He said you can open up a plant in Sandusky Ohio but who's going to work those jobs for $15 hr? So you better start hiring illegals who are coming from Mexico to work those factories.

Here's the unpleasant truth labor unions are going to have to face. High-paying manual labor jobs employing thousands of workers are a thing of the past because automation is going to replace them. Machines that can do the work better than humans can are becoming more cost competitive all the time. When a single machine that may cost $100/hour to run can replace 4 or 5 men making $75/hour each, does the job faster, more consistently and reliably, never takes time off and never needs breaks, it's inevitable. Yes, you can open a plant in Sandusky, but you're more likely to find a handful of tech workers monitoring a bunch of machines from a control room instead of thousands of men tightening bolts and welding joints. High-paying jobs are going to require high levels of education and training, not just muscles and years of doing the same things over and over.

 

[sealybobo]

Here's the unpleasant truth labor unions are going to have to face. High-paying manual labor jobs employing thousands of workers are a thing of the past because automation is going to replace them. Machines that can do the work better than humans can are becoming more cost competitive all the time. When a single machine that may cost $100/hour to run can replace 4 or 5 men making $75/hour each, does the job faster, more consistently and reliably, never takes time off and never needs breaks, it's inevitable. Yes, you can open a plant in Sandusky, but you're more likely to find a handful of tech workers monitoring a bunch of machines from a control room instead of thousands of men tightening bolts and welding joints. High-paying jobs are going to require high levels of education and training, not just muscles and years of doing the same things over and over.

This is why unions are important. If the CEO's since 1978 have given themselves a 1322% raise and labor only 18%, then we need a seat at the table. Perhaps the CEO's pay and all the VP's under him could have only given themselves a 661% raise and gave the workers the other 661%. That's what would have happened before Republicans ran all the unions out of the country.

Let's remember back before Bush got in. You can google any year you want. Ford record profits 1999, 98, 97. What was the problem? Company was making record profits and the employees were getting their "fair share" Today Republicans like to argue "what is your fair share"? It's what will make America great again guys.


Jan 2000: The Ford Motor Company said today that its hourly workers in the United States would receive an average of $8,000 in profit sharing for 1999, topping the record $6,100 average workers got for 1998.

 

[hadit]

This is why unions are important. If the CEO's since 1978 have given themselves a 1322% raise and labor only 18%, then we need a seat at the table. Perhaps the CEO's pay and all the VP's under him could have only given themselves a 661% raise and gave the workers the other 661%. That's what would have happened before Republicans ran all the unions out of the country.

Have you actually looked at the numbers? I doubt it. The average salary of an executive at Ford is $236K/year. There are a handful of people at the top at Ford. So how many non-executive employees are there at Ford? 177,000. Let's just put it this way, raising the pay of 177,000 workers by 18% costs a whole lot more money than raising the salaries of a handful of people by 1322%, even if they are making $236K. So, you can see that very large company is already spending far more on labor than they are on executive compensation. Let's say you even have a thousand making $236K, which is pretty absurd. That's $236,000,000. How much of a bump would each non-executive employee get if you took all executive compensation and gave it to the worker bees? Each one would get 1,333. That's not much for a year, is it? And there are more like a hundred at the top, which would be $133 for each employee. That's chump change.

Let's remember back before Bush got in. You can google any year you want. Ford record profits 1999, 98, 97. What was the problem? Company was making record profits and the employees were getting their "fair share" Today Republicans like to argue "what is your fair share"? It's what will make America great again guys.

Ford was one of the smart companies that did not get into the long-term, destructive contracts that GM, for example, did with the unions. They were far more able to survive without Obama's bailout money.

Jan 2000: The Ford Motor Company said today that its hourly workers in the United States would receive an average of $8,000 in profit sharing for 1999, topping the record $6,100 average workers got for 1998.

Yes, Ford didn't let the unions rape it and were able to take better care of the employees as a result.

 

[sealybobo]

Have you actually looked at the numbers? I doubt it. The average salary of an executive at Ford is $236K/year. There are a handful of people at the top at Ford. So how many non-executive employees are there at Ford? 177,000. Let's just put it this way, raising the pay of 177,000 workers by 18% costs a whole lot more money than raising the salaries of a handful of people by 1322%, even if they are making $236K. So, you can see that very large company is already spending far more on labor than they are on executive compensation. Let's say you even have a thousand making $236K, which is pretty absurd. That's $236,000,000. How much of a bump would each non-executive employee get if you took all executive compensation and gave it to the worker bees? Each one would get 1,333. That's not much for a year, is it? And there are more like a hundred at the top, which would be $133 for each employee. That's chump change.

Ford was one of the smart companies that did not get into the long-term, destructive contracts that GM, for example, did with the unions.

Huh? My brother isn't even the VP anymore. Or he wasn't. He just retired. They gave him a year severance. $1.5 million to sit home for a year.

Anyways, so he's not even the real VP for the last 4 or 5 years but he still made VP money. So not only does his boss (a diversity candidate female who makes double what he makes) make $2.5 million, she has other top execs who make a lot right underneath her. And then she quit, so they had to find a new diversity candidate. The found a black guy who makes 4 x what my brother makes. Because diversity candidates are hard to find.

So you keep telling yourself whatever you want to tell yourself. Bottom line, workers need a seat at the table. If CEO pay went up 1322% and theirs only 18% why are you even arguing with me? No wonder the gap between them and us is getting bigger. It's dummies like you.

 

[sealybobo]

Have you actually looked at the numbers? I doubt it. The average salary of an executive at Ford is $236K/year. There are a handful of people at the top at Ford. So how many non-executive employees are there at Ford? 177,000. Let's just put it this way, raising the pay of 177,000 workers by 18% costs a whole lot more money than raising the salaries of a handful of people by 1322%, even if they are making $236K. So, you can see that very large company is already spending far more on labor than they are on executive compensation. Let's say you even have a thousand making $236K, which is pretty absurd. That's $236,000,000. How much of a bump would each non-executive employee get if you took all executive compensation and gave it to the worker bees? Each one would get 1,333. That's not much for a year, is it? And there are more like a hundred at the top, which would be $133 for each employee. That's chump change.

Ford was one of the smart companies that did not get into the long-term, destructive contracts that GM, for example, did with the unions. They were far more able to survive without Obama's bailout money.

Yes, Ford didn't let the unions rape it and were able to take better care of the employees as a result.

Ever since the Bush Great Recession, Ford employees didn't get any raises. All the profits went to the CEO's. This is why unions are so important.

The UAW made strong wage gains after a six-week strike at selected plants run by Ford, General Motors and Jeep maker Stellantis.

Top-scale factory workers won 33% raises in a contract that runs through April of 2028, taking their top wage to around $42 per hour.

They ain't cryin about inflation.