On 4/27/2015 1:16 PM, Cheri wrote:
>
> "W. Lohman" > wrote in message
> ...
>> On 4/26/2015 5:57 PM, wrote:
>>> You, OTOH, live in a self-centered world where everything is about
>>> you, shopping and eating disorders.
>>
>> And you are unable to set a filter up?
>>
>> Or you just groove on abusing her?
>>
>> Which is it?
>
> The latter in many cases here. I get a kick out of some of them that are
> bitching about trolls etc., without thinking how tiresome their snotty
> replies to her are. Much worse IMO.
>
> Cheri

I think so too.

And yet she remains remarkably cheerful and free of venom in her replies.

I think that speaks volumes as to who she really is.

On Mon, 27 Apr 2015 12:44:03 -0600, "W. Lohman" > wrote:

> The point is, NO job should be sown up by a union.
>
> As a worker I should be able to get a job at a grocer and opt-out of the
> union if I so choose.
>
> It's all about CHOICE!

In the current state of affairs, if you had no union shops keeping
wages high - non-union wages and working conditions would be pitiful.
You only need to look as far as any third world or emerging nation to
understand.

--

sf

On 4/27/2015 12:58 PM, graham wrote:
> On 27/04/2015 11:46 AM, sf wrote:
>> On Mon, 27 Apr 2015 11:16:28 -0600, graham > wrote:
>>
>>> I am against the NEED for unions!
>>
>> Aren't we all?
>>
> Unless you are a fundie xtian Repuglican it seems.
>
Name-calling a productive strategy for you?

Clearly substantive debate id not your forte.

Meanwhile:

http://capitalresearch.org/2012/01/t...o-the-economy/

For decades the Detroit auto industry offered a model for demonstrating
the power of a union cartel in action. By the early 1940s the United
Auto Workers (UAW) union had organized the Big Three automakers—General
Motors, Ford, and Chrysler. The companies could not hire employees
except on terms specified by the union.

Under the leadership of UAW President Walter Reuther, the UAW insisted
on very generous compensation at each company. Reuther engaged in
“pattern bargaining”—targeting one of the Big Three during contract
negotiations for terms of a new (and usually generous) contract.

If the automaker would not pay, the union would strike, shutting down
operations, sending business to the other two companies, and costing the
targeted firm billions. So the target company routinely conceded to
union demands. Reuther forced the other two automakers to accept
contracts with similar terms. This strategy allowed the UAW to raise
labor costs across the Big Three without putting any of the automakers
out of business.

This arrangement worked incredibly well for UAW members. Until the
automakers were forced into bankruptcy proceedings in 2008 their labor
costs (wages and benefits) exceeded $70 an hour. UAW members enjoyed
seven weeks of paid vacation and they could retire to generous pension
benefits after 30 years on the job, irrespective of age. They earned
more than many Ph.D. scientists.

However, the UAW—like all cartels—helped its members at the expense of
the rest of the economy. Detroit automakers passed along the cost of
inefficient work rules and higher labor costs by raising their prices.
Since the Big Three controlled almost the entire U.S. market for cars,
and since Reuther did not allow them to compete on labor costs, American
consumers had little choice but to pay more for their product. That
meant higher monthly car payments and less money to spend elsewhere. For
some people the higher costs made buying a car unaffordable. So Detroit
built and sold fewer cars—and needed to hire fewer workers. The UAW
raised its members’ wages by raising prices and by restricting the job
opportunities for everyone else.

How Unions Restrict Competition for Labor

An incident last September in Washington state illustrates the
importance unions attach to restricting competition for jobs. In a scene
that could have come from the 1954 movie On the Waterfront the
Associated Press reported, “Hundreds of angry longshoremen stormed
through a grain shipping terminal in Longview, Wash. early Thursday and
held security guards at bay while descending on a disputed train full of
grain, cutting brake lines and dumping cargo.”

The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) attacked the
terminal to prevent another union from competing with it for dock work.
The ILWU had previously organized every port on the West Coast. And it
used its monopoly on dock labor to drive up the average wages of its
member employees to $125,000 a year, plus $80,000 in benefits.

An employer called EGT Development built a grain terminal at the Port of
Longview and hired workers from a different union to run it. This gave
farmers a port from which to ship their grain without paying ILWU
members $200,000 a year.

The ILWU didn’t want farmers to have that choice. So its members
overpowered guards, threw out grain, and sabotaged trains. The union
tried to physically prevent other American workers from competing with it.

On Mon, 27 Apr 2015 13:07:54 -0600, "W. Lohman" > wrote:

> On 4/27/2015 12:37 PM, sf wrote:
> > On Mon, 27 Apr 2015 14:39:20 -0400, Ed Pawlowski > wrote:
> >
> >> The two companies I've worked for for the past 30 years have no unions,
> >> but we treat the people well, pay a fair wage, we give them good
> >> benefits and a safe working environment.
> >
> > If more companies were like that, there would be no need to unionize.
> >
>
> Many are, look at Google and Apple, for example.

Where is their manufacturing done and what are their working
conditions? I know someone who did quality control inspections for
Apple and she knew perfectly well, they were showing her only what she
wanted/expected to see and knew working conditions weren't the same in
other plants or even in other parts of the same plant she visited.

--

sf

On Mon, 27 Apr 2015 13:09:40 -0600, "W. Lohman" > wrote:

> How can a dock worker justify $144K/year?

That's a matter of overtime. Employers need to hire more workers.

--

sf

On Mon, 27 Apr 2015 12:36:15 -0600, "W. Lohman" > wrote:

> On 4/27/2015 11:48 AM, sf wrote:
> >
> > Sure. You're also a temporarily embarrassed millionaire.
>
> Um...not sure what that means...can you be more explicit?

It's a popular John Steinbeck misquote. The original went like this:
I guess the trouble was that we didn’t have any self-admitted
proletarians. Everyone was a temporarily embarrassed capitalist.

--

sf

On 4/27/2015 1:26 PM, sf wrote:
> On Mon, 27 Apr 2015 12:44:03 -0600, "W. Lohman" > wrote:
>
>> The point is, NO job should be sown up by a union.
>>
>> As a worker I should be able to get a job at a grocer and opt-out of the
>> union if I so choose.
>>
>> It's all about CHOICE!
>
> In the current state of affairs, if you had no union shops keeping
> wages high - non-union wages and working conditions would be pitiful.

Untrue.

> You only need to look as far as any third world or emerging nation to
> understand.

But this is not the 3rd world.

And guess what, non union workers and economies do quite well, for example:


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-true...o-labor-costs/

In Kentucky, for example, Toyota workers in Georgetown earn about $30
per hour, while the median wage in the state for manufacturing jobs,
according to the Department of Labor, is $12.64.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/frederic...twice-as-much/

As Michael Maibach, president and chief executive of the European
American Business Council, puts it, union-management relations in the
U.S. are “adversarial,” whereas in Germany they’re “collaborative.”

Does such a happy relationship survive when German automakers set up
shop in the U.S.? No. As a historian observes in the article, “BMW is a
German company and it has a very German hierarchy and management system
in Germany,” yet “when they are operating in Spartanburg [in South
Carolina] they have become very, very easily adaptable to Spartanburg
business culture.” At Volkswagen’s Chattanooga plant, the nonunionized
new employees get $14.50 an hour, which rises to $19.50 after three years.

On Mon, 27 Apr 2015 12:52:27 -0600, "W. Lohman" > wrote:

> > I think it would be great if she Yelped her reviews!
>
> It would be, she might save future buyersfrom a rude awakening.

She and they have no other choice. It's either buy their food or just
give them the money, getting nothing in return. I say make them work
for it.

--

sf

On 4/27/2015 1:29 PM, sf wrote:
> On Mon, 27 Apr 2015 13:07:54 -0600, "W. Lohman" > wrote:
>
>> On 4/27/2015 12:37 PM, sf wrote:
>>> On Mon, 27 Apr 2015 14:39:20 -0400, Ed Pawlowski > wrote:
>>>
>>>> The two companies I've worked for for the past 30 years have no unions,
>>>> but we treat the people well, pay a fair wage, we give them good
>>>> benefits and a safe working environment.
>>>
>>> If more companies were like that, there would be no need to unionize.
>>>
>>
>> Many are, look at Google and Apple, for example.
>
> Where is their manufacturing done and what are their working
> conditions?

Point taken.

China.

> I know someone who did quality control inspections for
> Apple and she knew perfectly well, they were showing her only what she
> wanted/expected to see and knew working conditions weren't the same in
> other plants or even in other parts of the same plant she visited.

But that's manufacturing almost across the board these days.

For domestic workers their conditions are tops.

On 27/04/2015 1:27 PM, W. Lohman wrote:
> On 4/27/2015 12:58 PM, graham wrote:
>> On 27/04/2015 11:46 AM, sf wrote:
>>> On Mon, 27 Apr 2015 11:16:28 -0600, graham > wrote:
>>>
>>>> I am against the NEED for unions!
>>>
>>> Aren't we all?
>>>
>> Unless you are a fundie xtian Repuglican it seems.
>>
> Name-calling a productive strategy for you?
>
Judging by the majority of your posts in this forum, you certainly
believe it to be so!

On 4/27/2015 1:45 PM, sf wrote:

>
> Ah - yes, of course, I see the light now. Unions were single handedly
> responsible for the miserable failure of *American* automobile design
> (when the same set of American designers were perfectly capable of
> designing cars for foreign manufacturers that were well engineered and
> looked great), to say nothing of poor quality control. Then there was
> their refusal to modernize, insisting on continuing the outdated
> practice of one man installing one item on a cars 8 hours a day, which
> was the equivalent of you sitting at the computer and hitting one
> single solitary key all day long. You're so right. It's all the
> unions fault.

The fault lies in both camps. Unions would not allow for many changes.
If you were assigned to one job, you could not do another. Not just
the auto industry, but in many shops. A machine would be broken but the
operator can't touch it, he has to wait for the union mechanic to come
and tighten a screw because it is not in his job description. So let
the machine sit for an hour.

In the 1950's, the economy was strong. When the unions demanded a wage
increase or they'd strike, it was easy to add it into the price of a car
rather than lose sales to the competition. They all did it and it
worked back then. There was no competition aside from the other
inefficient giants of the industry.

You recall the old saying, never buy a car built on a Monday. There was
valid reason for that and it was the worker, not the company that build
the cars like crap. Monday a lot of workers showed up with a hang over
and did not perform well. We had a brand new '59 Chevy that developed
an odor a few days after delivery. Under the back seat was the remnants
of a workers lunch.

On 4/27/2015 1:31 PM, sf wrote:
> On Mon, 27 Apr 2015 13:09:40 -0600, "W. Lohman" > wrote:
>
>> How can a dock worker justify $144K/year?
>
> That's a matter of overtime.

Not really.

That was the average salary.

http://shippingwatch.com/Ports/article5762950.ece
American longshoremen, who are members of a union, earn far more than
the average worker in the U.S. In this week’s SeaIntel Sunday Spotlight,
SeaIntel is putting focus on the issue.

“Given that the current master contract between the ILWU (International
Longshore and Warehouse Union) and the terminal operators will expire in
June next year, and given that the port labor unions in the US have a
substantial power base, we have decided to take a closer look at the US
port labor unions in general and the wage-developments of the
dockworkers in particular,” writes SeaIntel in an analysis.

The analyst firm has compared salary data from Pacific Maritime
Association’s (PMA) homepage with the average salary in the U.S.
According to the website, the longshoremen on the U.S. West Coast earn
an average of 98,603 USD a year including two and a half weeks of
vacation on average. The earnings are about six times as much as the
minimum wage in California and more than double the 42,000 USD including
bonuses, which is the average salary for all Americans, according to
Silicon Valley Index.

A significant part of the longshoremen’s wages are the so-called
royalties for each container handled, and these royalties constituted a
crucial point in the negotiations six months ago when a strike nearly
shut down 14 ports on the U.S. East Coast.

SeaIntel notes that members of the union ILWU receive a benefits package
costing just under 50,000 USD per employee. This package includes fully
paid health care.

http://www.pmanet.org/the-ilwu-workforce

Wages
ILWU workers receive a compensation package that is among the most
lucrative among all blue-collar workers in the United States. Full-time
workers earn an average of $147,000 annually in wages, along with a
non-wage benefits package costing more than $82,000 per active worker
per year.

Health Benefits
The ILWU benefits package includes fully paid health care for workers,
retirees and their families with no premiums, no in-network deductibles
and 100 percent coverage of basic hospital, medical and surgical
benefits. Prescription drugs are covered for $1 per prescription; dental
and vision care are provided to workers, retirees and their families at
little or no cost.

Pensions
Workers are also eligible for a pension that has seen major upgrades in
recent years, with a current maximum benefit of nearly $80,000 per year.
Workers have access to a 401(k) savings plan with an employer
contribution, as well as 13 paid holidays each year and up to six weeks
of paid vacation.

> Employers need to hire more workers.

Possibly.

On 4/27/2015 1:46 PM, sf wrote:
> On Mon, 27 Apr 2015 11:16:28 -0600, graham > wrote:
>
>> I am against the NEED for unions!
>
> Aren't we all?
>

The need will probably never go away, but is sure has dwindled over the
past 50 years.

On 4/27/2015 1:37 PM, sf wrote:
> On Mon, 27 Apr 2015 12:36:15 -0600, "W. Lohman" > wrote:
>
>> On 4/27/2015 11:48 AM, sf wrote:
>>>
>>> Sure. You're also a temporarily embarrassed millionaire.
>>
>> Um...not sure what that means...can you be more explicit?
>
> It's a popular John Steinbeck misquote.

A new one for me.

> The original went like this:
> I guess the trouble was that we didn’t have any self-admitted
> proletarians. Everyone was a temporarily embarrassed capitalist.

That man may have spent a bit too much time talking to his poodle ;-)

On 4/27/2015 1:41 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
> On 4/27/2015 1:45 PM, sf wrote:
>
>>
>> Ah - yes, of course, I see the light now. Unions were single handedly
>> responsible for the miserable failure of *American* automobile design
>> (when the same set of American designers were perfectly capable of
>> designing cars for foreign manufacturers that were well engineered and
>> looked great), to say nothing of poor quality control. Then there was
>> their refusal to modernize, insisting on continuing the outdated
>> practice of one man installing one item on a cars 8 hours a day, which
>> was the equivalent of you sitting at the computer and hitting one
>> single solitary key all day long. You're so right. It's all the
>> unions fault.
>
> The fault lies in both camps. Unions would not allow for many changes.
> If you were assigned to one job, you could not do another. Not just
> the auto industry, but in many shops. A machine would be broken but the
> operator can't touch it, he has to wait for the union mechanic to come
> and tighten a screw because it is not in his job description. So let
> the machine sit for an hour.
>
> In the 1950's, the economy was strong. When the unions demanded a wage
> increase or they'd strike, it was easy to add it into the price of a car
> rather than lose sales to the competition. They all did it and it
> worked back then. There was no competition aside from the other
> inefficient giants of the industry.
>
> You recall the old saying, never buy a car built on a Monday. There was
> valid reason for that and it was the worker, not the company that build
> the cars like crap. Monday a lot of workers showed up with a hang over
> and did not perform well. We had a brand new '59 Chevy that developed
> an odor a few days after delivery. Under the back seat was the remnants
> of a workers lunch.
>

Remember former Sooner Brian Bosworth who played LB for Seattle?

He used to leave Coke bottles in door panels when he worked at an auto
plant during school just to drive consumers nuts.

http://www.snopes.com/autos/grace/rattle.asp

On 4/27/2015 1:43 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
> On 4/27/2015 1:46 PM, sf wrote:
>> On Mon, 27 Apr 2015 11:16:28 -0600, graham > wrote:
>>
>>> I am against the NEED for unions!
>>
>> Aren't we all?
>>
>
> The need will probably never go away, but is sure has dwindled over the
> past 50 years.

Which is a sign of a healthy market adjustment.

On 4/27/2015 1:39 PM, sf wrote:
> On Mon, 27 Apr 2015 12:52:27 -0600, "W. Lohman" > wrote:
>
>>> I think it would be great if she Yelped her reviews!
>>
>> It would be, she might save future buyersfrom a rude awakening.
>
> She and they have no other choice.

Oh bother, choise again!

What, is it a union community?

> It's either buy their food or just
> give them the money, getting nothing in return.

So it is analogous to a union shop.

> I say make them work for it.

I say find another active adult community, there must be dozens to
choose from.

On 4/27/2015 1:40 PM, graham wrote:
> On 27/04/2015 1:27 PM, W. Lohman wrote:
>> On 4/27/2015 12:58 PM, graham wrote:
>>> On 27/04/2015 11:46 AM, sf wrote:
>>>> On Mon, 27 Apr 2015 11:16:28 -0600, graham > wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I am against the NEED for unions!
>>>>
>>>> Aren't we all?
>>>>
>>> Unless you are a fundie xtian Repuglican it seems.
>>>
>> Name-calling a productive strategy for you?
>>
> Judging by the majority of your posts in this forum, you certainly
> believe it to be so!

Now what name did I call you, be specific?

Trolls will get as they give, btw.

Julie, The Ancestry.com DNA test will tell you if you have native blood, but not the tribe. It will also give you a list of all your cousins who have also taken the test. It doesn't give you their names but there is a way of reaching them through Ancestry.com. It usually costs $99 but is now on sale for $79. The test, however, does not say which of your ethnicities are maternal or paternal. I was able to figure it out by finding the ethnicity of my first cousin who had also taken the test. As she is a cousin on my mother's side, I figured all of the countries that matched mine are maternal and the rest were paternal. It's funny but my mother always told me when I was really young that her side of the family used to be very rich and were from Spain. I had somewhat forgotten about that when my results said I am 23%
from Spain. I wonder what happened to the money. My parents both died when I was a teenager so I can't ask them about any of this. I guess the Irish is on my dad's side. My son married into a big Irish family.

Denise in NH

On 4/27/2015 3:39 PM, sf wrote:
> On Mon, 27 Apr 2015 12:52:27 -0600, "W. Lohman" > wrote:
>
>>> I think it would be great if she Yelped her reviews!
>>
>> It would be, she might save future buyersfrom a rude awakening.
>
> She and they have no other choice. It's either buy their food or just
> give them the money, getting nothing in return. I say make them work
> for it.
>
The soft shelled crab they cooked were delicious! Locally sourced, too.
I can't imagine where I'd be able to go to buy soft shelled crab to
cook at home. If I could find them I'd certainly know how to cook them.

Jill

On 2015-04-27 1:45 PM, sf wrote:


>> Union shops did such a wonderful job with the American auto industry
>> that it almost went tits up.
>>
>
> Ah - yes, of course, I see the light now. Unions were single handedly
> responsible for the miserable failure of *American* automobile design
> (when the same set of American designers were perfectly capable of
> designing cars for foreign manufacturers that were well engineered and
> looked great), to say nothing of poor quality control.


I sure don't blame the unions for the problems with North American
cars. They didn't design and approve the manufacture of vehicles with
inherent problems. The weren't the ones who developed predatory
warranty problems. The unions weren't responsible for the dealerships
who viewed their franchises as licence to rip people off on repairs.
The unions were expected to take cuts in pay when business was bad, but
the CEO who was making millions per year were earning <?> bonuses.


It was getting screwed by dealerships and screwed on warranty work that
send me away from the Big Three. I had great luck with two Mazda
vehicles and would have bought another one, but Ford had become involved
with Mazda so I didn't want anything to do with them.

On 4/26/2015 6:53 PM, Dave Smith wrote:
> On 2015-04-26 6:21 PM, wrote:
>> On Sun, 26 Apr 2015 18:02:11 -0400, Dave Smith
>> > wrote:
>>
>>> On 2015-04-26 5:54 PM, sf wrote:
>>>> Racist Brits and Aussies seem to do that. Americans are proud of
>>>> their roots, but they have divided their populations into us vs them.
>>>
>>> Are they?
>>
>> Why even dignify that stupidity with a response?
>>
>>> Many of anglo ancestry seem to want to disassociate themselves
>>> from the nation that spawned an empire that spanned the globe. Then
>>> there is about 10% of the population that are descendants of slaves who
>>> seem to want to blame their current woes on the institution of slavery,
>>> which went down the tubes 150 years ago... 6 generations.
>>
>> Indeed. At what point do you cease with playing the racist/guilt card?
>> It's just part of human nature to exploit or abuse political
>> correctness (for want of a better term) and sadly a vocal minority do
>> exactly that. And the naive suck it up like candy. Objectivity has no
>> place in this topic
>>
>> Almost every race or culture is guilty of displacing another culture
>> at some point in their history anyway. But let's just keep it highly
>> selective who we demonise...
>
> I trust that you realize that is not a politically correct attitude.
> Many of my fellow Canadians seem compelled to feel guilt over the
> treatment of the natives, or "first nations" as they are called these
> days. I live in a part of the country whose indigenous people were wiped
> out 500 years ago in a conflict between other warring tribes.
>
> As an Australian, you might appreciate that many people in North America
> think of it has having its origins as a penal colony from back in the
> days when the standard punishment for criminals was "transport", but
> they seem not to realize that the criminals were only transported to
> Australia after the revolution. Before that, they used to transport
> their criminals to the American colonies.
>
Not just criminals. Two of my McQuown ancestors were "transported" to
the American colonies because they were captured at the Battle of
Bothwell Bridge. That was around 1679. If it had been later we might
have wound up in Australia.

Jill

On Mon, 27 Apr 2015 13:38:37 -0600, "W. Lohman" > wrote:

> On 4/27/2015 1:26 PM, sf wrote:
> > On Mon, 27 Apr 2015 12:44:03 -0600, "W. Lohman" > wrote:
> >
> >> The point is, NO job should be sown up by a union.
> >>
> >> As a worker I should be able to get a job at a grocer and opt-out of the
> >> union if I so choose.
> >>
> >> It's all about CHOICE!
> >
> > In the current state of affairs, if you had no union shops keeping
> > wages high - non-union wages and working conditions would be pitiful.
>
> Untrue.
>
> > You only need to look as far as any third world or emerging nation to
> > understand.
>
> But this is not the 3rd world.

It's not, with thanks to unions.

>
> And guess what, non union workers and economies do quite well, for example:
>
Is this really supposed to be an example of how well non-union workers
are doing? The good wages I see are due to unions or a direct threat
of unionization. If unions didn't exist, wages and working conditions
would never improve.
>
> http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-true...o-labor-costs/
>
> In Kentucky, for example, Toyota workers in Georgetown earn about $30
> per hour, while the median wage in the state for manufacturing jobs,
> according to the Department of Labor, is $12.64.
>
> http://www.forbes.com/sites/frederic...twice-as-much/
>
> As Michael Maibach, president and chief executive of the European
> American Business Council, puts it, union-management relations in the
> U.S. are “adversarial,” whereas in Germany they’re “collaborative.”

And there is still an obvious need for unions in Germany.
>
> Does such a happy relationship survive when German automakers set up
> shop in the U.S.? No. As a historian observes in the article, “BMW is a
> German company and it has a very German hierarchy and management system
> in Germany,” yet “when they are operating in Spartanburg [in South
> Carolina] they have become very, very easily adaptable to Spartanburg
> business culture.” At Volkswagen’s Chattanooga plant, the nonunionized
> new employees get $14.50 an hour, which rises to $19.50 after three years.

Whoop tee doo!


--

sf

On Monday, April 27, 2015 at 1:51:26 PM UTC-6, W. Lohman wrote:
> On 4/27/2015 1:40 PM, graham wrote:
> > On 27/04/2015 1:27 PM, W. Lohman wrote:
> >> On 4/27/2015 12:58 PM, graham wrote:
> >>> On 27/04/2015 11:46 AM, sf wrote:
> >>>> On Mon, 27 Apr 2015 11:16:28 -0600, graham > wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> I am against the NEED for unions!
> >>>>
> >>>> Aren't we all?
> >>>>
> >>> Unless you are a fundie xtian Repuglican it seems.
> >>>
> >> Name-calling a productive strategy for you?
> >>
> > Judging by the majority of your posts in this forum, you certainly
> > believe it to be so!
>
> Now what name did I call you, be specific?
>
> Trolls will get as they give, btw.

Graham is NO troll.
----

On 2015-04-27 1:16 PM, graham wrote:

>> I worked in places without unions and I worked in places with unions.
>
> My father was forced to join a union back in the 50s when British unions
> were particularly militant.
> However, their welfare arm really helped out when he was off work with
> back trouble.


I guess he was forced to accept the higher wages and better benefits
too. I am amazed how so many people are so opposed to work in union
shops and being forced to join the union and recent having to pay union
dues but who have no problem reaping the benefits. They expect to be
able to cross picket lines and work while the union is one strike and
don't have a problem with the union members walking the picket line and
sacrificing their pay to make things better for everyone, so long as
they don't have to make any sacrifice.





> I am against the NEED for unions!
>

On Mon, 27 Apr 2015 13:40:10 -0600, "W. Lohman" > wrote:

> But that's manufacturing almost across the board these days.
>
> For domestic workers their conditions are tops.

So you think being locked 24/7 in a factory with an attached bunkhouse
working 18 hour days top working conditions?

--

sf

On Mon, 27 Apr 2015 13:43:18 -0600, "W. Lohman" > wrote:

> On 4/27/2015 1:31 PM, sf wrote:
> > On Mon, 27 Apr 2015 13:09:40 -0600, "W. Lohman" > wrote:
> >
> >> How can a dock worker justify $144K/year?
> >
> > That's a matter of overtime.
>
> Not really.
>
> That was the average salary.
>
> http://shippingwatch.com/Ports/article5762950.ece
> American longshoremen, who are members of a union, earn far more than
> the average worker in the U.S. In this week’s SeaIntel Sunday Spotlight,
> SeaIntel is putting focus on the issue.
>
> “Given that the current master contract between the ILWU (International
> Longshore and Warehouse Union) and the terminal operators will expire in
> June next year, and given that the port labor unions in the US have a
> substantial power base, we have decided to take a closer look at the US
> port labor unions in general and the wage-developments of the
> dockworkers in particular,” writes SeaIntel in an analysis.
>
> The analyst firm has compared salary data from Pacific Maritime
> Association’s (PMA) homepage with the average salary in the U.S.
> According to the website, the longshoremen on the U.S. West Coast earn
> an average of 98,603 USD a year including two and a half weeks of
> vacation on average. The earnings are about six times as much as the
> minimum wage in California and more than double the 42,000 USD including
> bonuses, which is the average salary for all Americans, according to
> Silicon Valley Index.
>
> A significant part of the longshoremen’s wages are the so-called
> royalties for each container handled, and these royalties constituted a
> crucial point in the negotiations six months ago when a strike nearly
> shut down 14 ports on the U.S. East Coast.
>
> SeaIntel notes that members of the union ILWU receive a benefits package
> costing just under 50,000 USD per employee. This package includes fully
> paid health care.
>
> http://www.pmanet.org/the-ilwu-workforce
>
> Wages
> ILWU workers receive a compensation package that is among the most
> lucrative among all blue-collar workers in the United States. Full-time
> workers earn an average of $147,000 annually in wages, along with a
> non-wage benefits package costing more than $82,000 per active worker
> per year.
>
> Health Benefits
> The ILWU benefits package includes fully paid health care for workers,
> retirees and their families with no premiums, no in-network deductibles
> and 100 percent coverage of basic hospital, medical and surgical
> benefits. Prescription drugs are covered for $1 per prescription; dental
> and vision care are provided to workers, retirees and their families at
> little or no cost.
>
> Pensions
> Workers are also eligible for a pension that has seen major upgrades in
> recent years, with a current maximum benefit of nearly $80,000 per year.
> Workers have access to a 401(k) savings plan with an employer
> contribution, as well as 13 paid holidays each year and up to six weeks
> of paid vacation.

OIC, you're using that old saw of putting benefit packages together
and calling it a salary.
>
> > Employers need to hire more workers.
>
> Possibly.


--

sf

On 2015-04-27 2:37 PM, sf wrote:
> On Mon, 27 Apr 2015 14:39:20 -0400, Ed Pawlowski > wrote:
>
>> The two companies I've worked for for the past 30 years have no unions,
>> but we treat the people well, pay a fair wage, we give them good
>> benefits and a safe working environment.
>
> If more companies were like that, there would be no need to unionize.
>

I lived in a city with auto parts manufacturing. GM workers were
unionized and often went on strike for better pay and benefits. Another
local plant was non union. They kept their workers happy by giving
them close to what GM workers were getting, and the workers were happy
not to have to pay union dues and not to have to go on strike. It
worked well for them as long as GM was raising the bar.

On Mon, 27 Apr 2015 15:41:18 -0400, Ed Pawlowski > wrote:

> You recall the old saying, never buy a car built on a Monday.

That was for Fiat. We bought a Spider that must have been built on
Tuesday, because that sucker lasted.

--

sf

On 4/27/2015 1:51 PM, jmcquown wrote:
> On 4/27/2015 3:39 PM, sf wrote:
>> On Mon, 27 Apr 2015 12:52:27 -0600, "W. Lohman" > wrote:
>>
>>>> I think it would be great if she Yelped her reviews!
>>>
>>> It would be, she might save future buyersfrom a rude awakening.
>>
>> She and they have no other choice. It's either buy their food or just
>> give them the money, getting nothing in return. I say make them work
>> for it.
>>
> The soft shelled crab they cooked were delicious! Locally sourced, too.
> I can't imagine where I'd be able to go to buy soft shelled crab to
> cook at home. If I could find them I'd certainly know how to cook them.
>
> Jill

Uh oh, she reversed field and stopped complaining.

On Mon, 27 Apr 2015 13:44:17 -0600, "W. Lohman" > wrote:

> On 4/27/2015 1:37 PM, sf wrote:
> > On Mon, 27 Apr 2015 12:36:15 -0600, "W. Lohman" > wrote:
> >
> >> On 4/27/2015 11:48 AM, sf wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Sure. You're also a temporarily embarrassed millionaire.
> >>
> >> Um...not sure what that means...can you be more explicit?
> >
> > It's a popular John Steinbeck misquote.
>
> A new one for me.
>
> > The original went like this:
> > I guess the trouble was that we didn’t have any self-admitted
> > proletarians. Everyone was a temporarily embarrassed capitalist.
>
> That man may have spent a bit too much time talking to his poodle ;-)

Hey - I like poodles! The Standards are smarter than a lot of people.

--

sf

On 4/27/2015 1:52 PM, Dave Smith wrote:
> On 2015-04-27 1:45 PM, sf wrote:
>
>
>>> Union shops did such a wonderful job with the American auto industry
>>> that it almost went tits up.
>>>
>>
>> Ah - yes, of course, I see the light now. Unions were single handedly
>> responsible for the miserable failure of *American* automobile design
>> (when the same set of American designers were perfectly capable of
>> designing cars for foreign manufacturers that were well engineered and
>> looked great), to say nothing of poor quality control.
>
>
> I sure don't blame the unions for the problems with North American
> cars.

Oh of course not, after all they just assembled them, with utter
indifference to quality.

> They didn't design and approve the manufacture of vehicles with
> inherent problems.

And you think no foreign models ever had "inherent design problems"?

Ever hear the name Yugo?

> The weren't the ones who developed predatory
> warranty problems.

WTF are those?

> The unions weren't responsible for the dealerships
> who viewed their franchises as licence to rip people off on repairs.

That is an after the manufacturing straw man.

Also, there are plenty of state and federal consumer protection laws to
deal with any perceived repair ripoffs.


> The unions were expected to take cuts in pay when business was bad,

You never heard of their job banks?

http://www.autonews.com/article/2014...mbol-of-excess

"At its peak around 2006, some 15,000 workers were in the Jobs Bank,
costing GM, Ford and Chrysler billions of dollars. The program
encouraged companies to keep plants running even if the vehicles they
produced were selling poorly.

That, in turn, led to a broad range of habits that added to the
industry's miseries in 2008 -- overproduction, factories forcing excess
cars onto dealers and the proliferation of profit-sapping incentives to
sell those cars.

The Jobs Bank allowed workers to receive 95 percent of their pay while
on layoff. Many workers spent the time volunteering or taking classes,
though some simply reported to a company-designated location and waited
until their plants needed them again.

The Jobs Bank actually was an idea proposed by GM to the UAW during
contract talks. GM officials believed it would never even be necessary
because the company expected to fully use its production capacity,
former executive Bob Lutz wrote in his book Car Guys vs. Bean Counters.

"Exactly the opposite happened," Lutz wrote, "and the Jobs Bank, albeit
to a lesser extent than health care, became yet another major boulder
placed on the backs of America's Big Three as they continued their
footrace against Japan's burden-free car companies."


They didn't take any pay cuts until 2007 when they bankrupted the
automakers, save for Ford.


> but the CEO who was making millions per year were earning <?> bonuses.

Yes, so?

They report to and are accountable to their Board.

Cope.

> It was getting screwed by dealerships

So you spent too much for your cars?

Your problem.

> and screwed on warranty work that send me away from the Big Three.


Warranty work was paid for by the manufacturer.

You had every legal right to demand it be done until correct, at their cost.


> I had great luck with two Mazda
> vehicles and would have bought another one, but Ford had become involved
> with Mazda so I didn't want anything to do with them.

Iow, you didn't know how to tell a US built Mazda from a Japan made one?

On Mon, 27 Apr 2015 02:43:08 -0700, "Julie Bove"
> wrote:

>
>"Jeßus" > wrote in message
.. .
>> Same. I shop because I need things, not for entertainment purposes or
>> compulsive shopping for the sake of shopping. I like to get it done
>> ASAP and then I'm outta there
>
>Well, that would be boring.

You must have a boring life if you have to go shopping to be either
entertained or for recreation. I can think of plenty of better things
to do than that!

On 4/27/2015 1:56 PM, sf wrote:
> On Mon, 27 Apr 2015 13:38:37 -0600, "W. Lohman" > wrote:
>
>> On 4/27/2015 1:26 PM, sf wrote:
>>> On Mon, 27 Apr 2015 12:44:03 -0600, "W. Lohman" > wrote:
>>>
>>>> The point is, NO job should be sown up by a union.
>>>>
>>>> As a worker I should be able to get a job at a grocer and opt-out of the
>>>> union if I so choose.
>>>>
>>>> It's all about CHOICE!
>>>
>>> In the current state of affairs, if you had no union shops keeping
>>> wages high - non-union wages and working conditions would be pitiful.
>>
>> Untrue.
>>
>>> You only need to look as far as any third world or emerging nation to
>>> understand.
>>
>> But this is not the 3rd world.
>
> It's not, with thanks to unions.
>
>>
>> And guess what, non union workers and economies do quite well, for example:
>>
> Is this really supposed to be an example of how well non-union workers
> are doing? The good wages I see are due to unions or a direct threat
> of unionization. If unions didn't exist, wages and working conditions
> would never improve.
>>
>> http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-true...o-labor-costs/
>>
>> In Kentucky, for example, Toyota workers in Georgetown earn about $30
>> per hour, while the median wage in the state for manufacturing jobs,
>> according to the Department of Labor, is $12.64.
>>
>> http://www.forbes.com/sites/frederic...twice-as-much/
>>
>> As Michael Maibach, president and chief executive of the European
>> American Business Council, puts it, union-management relations in the
>> U.S. are “adversarial,” whereas in Germany they’re “collaborative.”
>
> And there is still an obvious need for unions in Germany.

And there is an obvious difference in their relationship with the
manufacturers IN Germany.

Which was my point.

As for need, that's up to the Germans to parse.

>> Does such a happy relationship survive when German automakers set up
>> shop in the U.S.? No. As a historian observes in the article, “BMW is a
>> German company and it has a very German hierarchy and management system
>> in Germany,” yet “when they are operating in Spartanburg [in South
>> Carolina] they have become very, very easily adaptable to Spartanburg
>> business culture.” At Volkswagen’s Chattanooga plant, the nonunionized
>> new employees get $14.50 an hour, which rises to $19.50 after three years.
>
> Whoop tee doo!

Not bad pay to babysit robots.

In fact:

http://www.indeed.com/salary/Factory-Worker.html

"Average Salary of Jobs with Related Titles

General Factory Worker
$30,000"

And the halo effect of having a VW plant leads to:

http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/b...500-at/141241/

"Calling Volkswagen "a big customer," a French automotive supplier that
plans to supply bumpers and fender parts for the Passat sedan also will
eye work for a sport utility vehicle that VW wants to assemble for the U.S.

The average wage of the jobs will be $44,500 a year, said Patrick Raley,
who directs human resources for Plastic Omnium in the U.S."



Btw - the UAW, despite losing shop votes, is now unionizing in
Tennessee, word is that may cool VW's plans to open a new SUV plant there.

On 4/27/2015 1:57 PM, Roy wrote:
> On Monday, April 27, 2015 at 1:51:26 PM UTC-6, W. Lohman wrote:
>> On 4/27/2015 1:40 PM, graham wrote:
>>> On 27/04/2015 1:27 PM, W. Lohman wrote:
>>>> On 4/27/2015 12:58 PM, graham wrote:
>>>>> On 27/04/2015 11:46 AM, sf wrote:
>>>>>> On Mon, 27 Apr 2015 11:16:28 -0600, graham > wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I am against the NEED for unions!
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Aren't we all?
>>>>>>
>>>>> Unless you are a fundie xtian Repuglican it seems.
>>>>>
>>>> Name-calling a productive strategy for you?
>>>>
>>> Judging by the majority of your posts in this forum, you certainly
>>> believe it to be so!
>>
>> Now what name did I call you, be specific?
>>
>> Trolls will get as they give, btw.
>
> Graham is NO troll.
> ----
>

Nor has he been treated as one, and certainly not by me.

On 4/27/2015 2:00 PM, sf wrote:
> On Mon, 27 Apr 2015 13:40:10 -0600, "W. Lohman" > wrote:
>
>> But that's manufacturing almost across the board these days.
>>
>> For domestic workers their conditions are tops.
>
> So you think being locked 24/7 in a factory with an attached bunkhouse
> working 18 hour days top working conditions?
>

Where does that happen in the USA?

Note, I said _domestic workers_

On 4/27/2015 2:01 PM, sf wrote:
> On Mon, 27 Apr 2015 13:43:18 -0600, "W. Lohman" > wrote:
>
>> On 4/27/2015 1:31 PM, sf wrote:
>>> On Mon, 27 Apr 2015 13:09:40 -0600, "W. Lohman" > wrote:
>>>
>>>> How can a dock worker justify $144K/year?
>>>
>>> That's a matter of overtime.
>>
>> Not really.
>>
>> That was the average salary.
>>
>> http://shippingwatch.com/Ports/article5762950.ece
>> American longshoremen, who are members of a union, earn far more than
>> the average worker in the U.S. In this week’s SeaIntel Sunday Spotlight,
>> SeaIntel is putting focus on the issue.
>>
>> “Given that the current master contract between the ILWU (International
>> Longshore and Warehouse Union) and the terminal operators will expire in
>> June next year, and given that the port labor unions in the US have a
>> substantial power base, we have decided to take a closer look at the US
>> port labor unions in general and the wage-developments of the
>> dockworkers in particular,” writes SeaIntel in an analysis.
>>
>> The analyst firm has compared salary data from Pacific Maritime
>> Association’s (PMA) homepage with the average salary in the U.S.
>> According to the website, the longshoremen on the U.S. West Coast earn
>> an average of 98,603 USD a year including two and a half weeks of
>> vacation on average. The earnings are about six times as much as the
>> minimum wage in California and more than double the 42,000 USD including
>> bonuses, which is the average salary for all Americans, according to
>> Silicon Valley Index.
>>
>> A significant part of the longshoremen’s wages are the so-called
>> royalties for each container handled, and these royalties constituted a
>> crucial point in the negotiations six months ago when a strike nearly
>> shut down 14 ports on the U.S. East Coast.
>>
>> SeaIntel notes that members of the union ILWU receive a benefits package
>> costing just under 50,000 USD per employee. This package includes fully
>> paid health care.
>>
>> http://www.pmanet.org/the-ilwu-workforce
>>
>> Wages
>> ILWU workers receive a compensation package that is among the most
>> lucrative among all blue-collar workers in the United States. Full-time
>> workers earn an average of $147,000 annually in wages, along with a
>> non-wage benefits package costing more than $82,000 per active worker
>> per year.
>>
>> Health Benefits
>> The ILWU benefits package includes fully paid health care for workers,
>> retirees and their families with no premiums, no in-network deductibles
>> and 100 percent coverage of basic hospital, medical and surgical
>> benefits. Prescription drugs are covered for $1 per prescription; dental
>> and vision care are provided to workers, retirees and their families at
>> little or no cost.
>>
>> Pensions
>> Workers are also eligible for a pension that has seen major upgrades in
>> recent years, with a current maximum benefit of nearly $80,000 per year.
>> Workers have access to a 401(k) savings plan with an employer
>> contribution, as well as 13 paid holidays each year and up to six weeks
>> of paid vacation.
>
> OIC, you're using that old saw of putting benefit packages together
> and calling it a salary.

Um, how do you grade out your employment vs. out of pocket costs?

They average a whopping $147K to unload containers!

>>
>>> Employers need to hire more workers.
>>
>> Possibly.
>
>

On 4/27/2015 2:03 PM, Dave Smith wrote:
> On 2015-04-27 2:37 PM, sf wrote:
>> On Mon, 27 Apr 2015 14:39:20 -0400, Ed Pawlowski > wrote:
>>
>>> The two companies I've worked for for the past 30 years have no unions,
>>> but we treat the people well, pay a fair wage, we give them good
>>> benefits and a safe working environment.
>>
>> If more companies were like that, there would be no need to unionize.
>>
>
> I lived in a city with auto parts manufacturing. GM workers were
> unionized and often went on strike for better pay and benefits. Another
> local plant was non union. They kept their workers happy by giving
> them close to what GM workers were getting, and the workers were happy
> not to have to pay union dues and not to have to go on strike. It
> worked well for them as long as GM was raising the bar.


It worked great until the US automakers becmne UNCOMPETITIVE per unit
vehicle cost!

On 4/27/2015 2:03 PM, sf wrote:
> On Mon, 27 Apr 2015 15:41:18 -0400, Ed Pawlowski > wrote:
>
>> You recall the old saying, never buy a car built on a Monday.
>
> That was for Fiat. We bought a Spider that must have been built on
> Tuesday, because that sucker lasted.
>

Liked those a lot, very sporty and well-styled.

Your brand monicker however was "fix it again Tony".

On 4/27/2015 2:05 PM, sf wrote:
> On Mon, 27 Apr 2015 13:44:17 -0600, "W. Lohman" > wrote:
>
>> On 4/27/2015 1:37 PM, sf wrote:
>>> On Mon, 27 Apr 2015 12:36:15 -0600, "W. Lohman" > wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 4/27/2015 11:48 AM, sf wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Sure. You're also a temporarily embarrassed millionaire.
>>>>
>>>> Um...not sure what that means...can you be more explicit?
>>>
>>> It's a popular John Steinbeck misquote.
>>
>> A new one for me.
>>
>>> The original went like this:
>>> I guess the trouble was that we didn’t have any self-admitted
>>> proletarians. Everyone was a temporarily embarrassed capitalist.
>>
>> That man may have spent a bit too much time talking to his poodle ;-)
>
> Hey - I like poodles! The Standards are smarter than a lot of people.
>

I would completely agree.