The 36-hour work week/3-day weekend

[dblack]

Yes, but with so many variables that are out there, could it always be trusted that the employer will play fair with the employee's or the employee's with the employer in a one on one situation, and if not is this why Unions were created for the workers and also the employers in some and/or in many cases ? Once Unions were established for the workers and for the employers, isn't this where some great benefits and protections for all involved came from, like the 40 hour work week, safety in the work place, vacation time, breaks and etc. ?? Were the unions good for the employers also, I mean if the employer embraced the union ?

Unions, as a matter of policy, fight to keep people hired regardless. There was a situation where one employee was chronically negligent in his position, the company couldn't fire him because of unions - even after the guys negligence killed another employee, a fellow union member. The oil company basically stuffed the 'offending' guy into a BS position (where he couldn't do any harm) and have to continue paying him even though the guy is useless to them as a company. -- Agreeably that's an exceptional case, but the point here is that the unions are not working for an individual worker himself per say, they are working for a general cause.

That said, I do not believe unions "started" the 40h work week. If I remember right it was more a universal call from employees in general who, for example, didn't want to work 10-5's and what have you, been around since the like 1800s if I remember. France even had a slogan: "8 hours work, 8 hours play, 8 hours sleep" because they felt that was the best division of the day (which works out to, you guessed it, 40 hours in the old standard M-F week.) Further on though, sometime in the 1930's the US gov. passed the SFLA to mandate OT for over 8h/day and 40h/week and businesses had no choice but to adapt to the new law.

Unions typically fight for things like work place safety, pay rate, and benefits on TOP of the 40h week because that was the cry for fairness in past generations. I'm not so sure they would be keen to attempt any alteration the 40h week standard because a) its what the employee wanted historically, and b) it's kind of dictated by the US gov and therefore rather non negotiable for an employer. I'm not too sure that unions would be to keen on taking up a voice for any schedule that involved mandatory OT as, at least in so much as the ones I've dealt with, they have historically fought against it. Though it's entirely possible that might just be specific to unions where I am because of our geographical location.

Replace the word Union in the embolded above with "Government", now what's the difference in the read ? There is none...

Nominally, unions don't have the power to legislate and enforce laws. I say "nominally", because in the corporatist era, that essentially what they've been granted. They've been bought off by perks and privilege and now are primarily defending their own power rather than the rights of workers in general.

 

[gallantwarrior]

I would love to have a 40 hour work week instead of my usual 50.

Yes it has become a problem for many, where as the work week has expanded in hours for the investors to make more and more money, while the wages went stagnant for to many years in all of it. I remember in construction, most all were working a 40 hour work week that consisted of 10 hours a day 4 days a week. This worked well for the workers who most were from out of town working their specialty talent in that industry. This allowed them to get back home on Friday evening, and spend Saturday and Sunday with their families. This was a good thing, but greed began spreading as hours increased all the way to Saturday, where as threats were issued next that if the workers didn't like it, then they could just find them something else to do. Then the illegals or migrants were used as leverage to change the system and replace those Americans who wanted to have a decent job in life, and a better balance of their family life in the situation as well. This is also where the lies were told that the Americans wouldn't work, and these illegals or migrants were just doing the job's that Americans won't do. Greed has changed everything, and it has just about destroyed the American construction worker families in America.

There is also the disincentive to work when one is confident that someone else will be required to pay for their food, shelter, and whatnot. If welfare and other social "safety net" programs did not exist, many Americans would be more than motivated to take those "undesirable" jobs are told are peopled by foreigners.

 

[Slyhunter]

I would love to have a 40 hour work week instead of my usual 50.

Yes it has become a problem for many, where as the work week has expanded in hours for the investors to make more and more money, while the wages went stagnant for to many years in all of it. I remember in construction, most all were working a 40 hour work week that consisted of 10 hours a day 4 days a week. This worked well for the workers who most were from out of town working their specialty talent in that industry. This allowed them to get back home on Friday evening, and spend Saturday and Sunday with their families. This was a good thing, but greed began spreading as hours increased all the way to Saturday, where as threats were issued next that if the workers didn't like it, then they could just find them something else to do. Then the illegals or migrants were used as leverage to change the system and replace those Americans who wanted to have a decent job in life, and a better balance of their family life in the situation as well. This is also where the lies were told that the Americans wouldn't work, and these illegals or migrants were just doing the job's that Americans won't do. Greed has changed everything, and it has just about destroyed the American construction worker families in America.

There is also the disincentive to work when one is confident that someone else will be required to pay for their food, shelter, and whatnot. If welfare and other social "safety net" programs did not exist, many Americans would be more than motivated to take those "undesirable" jobs are told are peopled by foreigners.

slave labor out of need.

 

[gallantwarrior]

How did they steal the jobs from the Americans you ask ? Well they didn't, but what happened was this, where as it was the American businessmen who set the whole thing up, and to replace the Americans with them because they would work for what they could pay them under the table, meanwhile they got government assistance and free schooling while here, and yes it was all off of the taxpayers dime as a subsidy for them. Wow what a set up that was..wow..... The Americans even if they wanted to work couldn't beat that system of doing things, so it was see ya and wouldn't want to be ya to the American workers. There are countless news reports and claims on this situation, but I bet many hope time erases the knowledge of it all soon. This way people can claim it was all a myth in what people are claiming now, just like you who deny the whole thing by claiming ignorance to these things. In the situation it mattered not how smarter or harder you worked, because you were about to be replaced regardless of these things you speak of, and especially if thinking about asking for a raise in such a rigged game as it was.

Is this anectdotal? Do you have some personal experience with this?

How were these illegals getting government assistance and free schooling?

In essence, are you saying that the illegals were able to underprice the American workers out of work because they were able to accept lower wages than the Americans could?

I'm not trying to deny anything, and I cannot claim ignorance as ignorance is what I have about these events regardless of any claim. I'm not particularly aged, there was no mention of this in the AP American History course I took in High School, I haven't had any other American History classes since, and I haven't heard anyone talk about American business owners rigging the system to oust the American worker outside of this board.

Everyone gets free schooling whether they are citizens or not.
Everyone who has a kid born in America gets food stamps and assistance whether they themselves are citizens or not.
Illegals/immigrants are able to underprice the American workers because they are willing to live like animals with barely enough room to lay down and sleep they stuff their homes with so many people. Do you want Americans to live like that because they have to bid down the wages to get a job?

In Hong Kong the "working poor" live in cages in hostels. In Japan, the working poor live in coffin size hotels. In Cambodia, they live in the streets or in bamboo huts with no running water, and no electric, the working poor. Doesn't American's working poor deserve better than that?

Most of America's "working poor" do live a helluva lot better, thanks to the taxpayer supported, government administered social welfare programs that subsidize them.

 

[initforme]

There should be no such thing as working poor, If you are working full time then one should have enough to eat, own a reliable vehicle, own a house, and have enough to raise a family. That's the way it should be. The so called American dream is empty margin.

 

[initforme]

Undesirable jobs should pay more than desirable ones.

 

[gallantwarrior]

A capitalist is employing a worker to make a pen. The cost of raw materials and overhead was $10. He sells this pen in the end for $20. So with the cost of raw materials we have now got $10 left. So the worker makes the pen all by himself whilst the boss is away somewhere else, let say in the office of the factory doing whatever. The end of the day comes, the worker has made the pen. The boss takes this pen and wants to sell it (and does for $20 as mentioned above). To pay him for his work, he gives him $3. So where did the rest of the money go ? There is $7 unaccounted for. It didn't go the worker. It went to the boss, as profit. The boss has extracted so called surplus value.

This is exactly the mentality of a guy that does not get business. There are other expenses, there is labor, materials, utilities, equipment, building space, time spent dealing with government agencies, there are permits, licenses, taxes, unemployment insurance, workman comp insurance, business insurance, building insurance, time spent selling, not to mention the businesses are charged more for sewer, water, electrical, internet access and a host of other costs.

All these things are anecdotal, where as they are figured in along with everything else when doing business, and it has nothing to do with how you pay your employee as based upon the supply and demand chain one might fine themselves in. How do you think businessmen get so filthy rich then, I mean if they are so overwhelmed with debt, cost and all else that is dragging them down ? They know how to make a profit above and beyond of all the things you mention that's how, but for some reason even when they are in a supply and demand chain that ensures huge profits for them, they are greedy still, and worse disrespectful, and so they decide that they should have almost 300% instead of a little less so that their employee's might share in that success along with them better ( I mean why not they helped them make it also).

Why is this greed I wonder ? Is it because they unionize in their thinking at or near the top, and so they can't operate as corporate individuals in which is what they want to be called when it benefits them, but when it comes to their employee's they group themselves in with the others who cry and complain about this all of the time, and so they say that they are hurting all the time right, and so there is just no way that they can pay anymore at all to their employee's because they (these con men) are just hurting all the time as according to them right?

Then we all go and watch episodes of Epic homes and other shows like this on TV, but they couldn't afford to do people right in life, no there was just no way they could do nothing like that on their own now could they?...LOL

You watch too much TV.
That said, the greater majority of business owners are anything but "filthy rich" and invest enormous amounts of time and money making their business work.

 

[Samson]

Undesirable jobs should pay more than desirable ones.

The stupid should get paid much less than the smart.

 

[initforme]

Nobody should do the undesirable jobs. Leave them unfilled and undone.

 

[Samson]

Nobody should do the undesirable jobs. Leave them unfilled and undone.

Meh...there will always be someone willing to prositute themself.

Oldest profession.

 

[initforme]

Marry money. The realistic way one can get ahead.

 

[hadit]

Marry money. The realistic way one can get ahead.

It worked for John Kerry.

 

[beagle9]

You know I'm wondering and maybe I have it wrong.

2 people

person 1 makes 100$ a day
person 2 makes 1,000$ a day

Lets say you decide you will pay... er force business's to pay person 1 10$ more a day... Whelp, you have to pay the 1,000$ a day person 100$ more a day to be fair by %.... While I understand this logical scenario can't exists in the mindless progressive welfare group of bitching babies (because one would be *too* well off, unless they are a Democrat).. Just pretend one person makes 85$ a day and the other makes 190$ a day. It would DESTORY an employer to give people more money for less time if they make any real money.

A capitalist is employing a worker to make a pen. The cost of raw materials and overhead was $10. He sells this pen in the end for $20. So with the cost of raw materials we have now got $10 left. So the worker makes the pen all by himself whilst the boss is away somewhere else, let say in the office of the factory doing whatever. The end of the day comes, the worker has made the pen. The boss takes this pen and wants to sell it (and does for $20 as mentioned above). To pay him for his work, he gives him $3. So where did the rest of the money go ? There is $7 unaccounted for. It didn't go the worker. It went to the boss, as profit. The boss has extracted so called surplus value.

Yes. That's the reason the boss invested his time and money establishing and building the business to make pens. The worker extracts the benefit of having a job. If the worker is dissatisfied with his "cut" of the "surplus value" of the pen's price, that worker is certainly welcome to establish his own pen-making business and hire his own pen-maker. Maybe then he could undercut the sales price of his former boss by selling his pens for, say...$19. Of course, the new business owner, being cognizant of how unfair it is to pay his employees only $3 out of the price of the pen, will no doubt split the profit ($9), keeping $4.50 for himself and paying $4.50 to his pen-making employee. Better yet, since the new business owner recognizes the efforts of his pen-maker as being the source of his income, he will pay the entire sum realized by the sale of the pen, minus overhead and other related costs. $10 to the business owner, $9 to the pen-making employee.

Very simplistic view, but where does the supply and demand of it all come in, and for what it can do for the entire operation ? When demand picks up to a level that is overwhelming, then this is when the employee feels they should succeed in life or to grow with the company just as well as the employer is succeeding and growing in life. The problem comes when the employee doesn't get to grow with the company, but is instead held back while the management and owners reap the benefits of their labor, and sadly in disrespect of that labor.

 

[beagle9]

Undesirable jobs should pay more than desirable ones.

The stupid should get paid much less than the smart.

Hey I left a job one time that took some smarts to do the job, but I left the job for a more undesirable job in the construction industry. It still required some smarts in the job that I took, and the job was way, way harder, but what it did was pay way way more because of the undesirable aspect of it. I see his point.

 

[Shanty]

It didn't work in France. It won't work in America.

France has higher growth than most of the rest of the EU. And the thing holding the EU back is the euro.

 

[Toro]

bump

 

[Papageorgio]

It didn't work in France. It won't work in America.

France has higher growth than most of the rest of the EU. And the thing holding the EU back is the euro.

So, does Europe have a shrinking economy?


Sent from my iPad using an Android.

 

[Mathbud1]

Yes, but with so many variables that are out there, could it always be trusted that the employer will play fair with the employee's or the employee's with the employer in a one on one situation, and if not is this why Unions were created for the workers and also the employers in some and/or in many cases ? Once Unions were established for the workers and for the employers, isn't this where some great benefits and protections for all involved came from, like the 40 hour work week, safety in the work place, vacation time, breaks and etc. ?? Were the unions good for the employers also, I mean if the employer embraced the union ?

Fair is a matter of perspective and circumstance. Ultimately, it's an idividualj judgement

And what rights are the individual afforded in the negotiations process again ? I bet there hasn't been an interview that afforded the worker the respect that he or she is deserved in a very long time, and this especially if negotiations are out of play somehow in an interview. The field has been controlled now for quite a long long time. The worker has been told just to be glad if they have a job, and if they are given a job by the employer then take it no matter what the circumstances are. This is supposed to stop the worker from thinking he or she has any chance at any kind of negotiations in an interview for a job, and if it doesn't then they are passed up for the next potential voiceless drone that is supposed to be considered an American worker, but only if he or she stays in line no matter what the situation is. It is true that they can just quit yes, and that they can find them something else of course, but it should also be true that people can boycott a bad employer wouldn't you say ? Hey fair is fair right ?

You have a twisted view of businesses that doesn't fit with any of the companies I've worked for.

The majority of people, at least around here, are pretty decent. That includes management, workers, VPs, everyone.

 

[dblack]

There should be no such thing as working poor, If you are working full time then one should have enough to eat, own a reliable vehicle, own a house, and have enough to raise a family. That's the way it should be. The so called American dream is empty margin.

Seriously? Even if they're working full time on something no one wants or needs?

 

[Politico]

Growth is not the point. Their unemployment rate is over 10%. And like here that does include the huge amount of underemployed or the 1.4 million in the halo who aren't counted in the numbers.