American manufacturing has been in decline for years.
Our textile industry moved overseas a long time ago.
The steel mills like wise have relocated.
Today, companies have "outsourced" many of their services to third parties located in other countries.
And most recently, GM and Ford are laying tens of thousand off and circling their wagons.
Large manufacturing companies operate under a huge burden with employment costs and benefits.

Have the Unions forced America into becoming a "consumer" rather than the "supplier"?

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Don't argue with an idiot. They bring you down to their level, then beat you with experience.

Should we go back to the pre-union days when workers had no rights and job benefits were unheard of?

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WARNING: In the unlikely event of an accidental agreement with any or all points made in the above post, contact a clinical psychologist immediately.

The views expressed in the above post are not necessarily those of Joker and/or any of his affiliates.

"You have found the secret message. Do you have too much time on your hands? ...Let it go."

Higher wages and better job benefits are related to increased worker productivity - not unionism.

Don't get me wrong. Unions had a purpose at one time - when they were less political and more activist. They even helped close down sweatshops and end child labor. That being said, unions ceased being relevant years ago. Now they do far more harm to the average worker than good.

I know there is a lot of corruption in some unions, which is why I think there ought to be better laws to control it. I've been in a couple of unions. One was at a supermarket, and it was terrible. I made a complaint abuot the store once to the union rep when he visited our store. He nodded and smiled and assured me that he would fix the problem, but after a couple of weeks when I asked the manager about it, he said he had no idea what I was talking about. Then I tried to get out of that union, but was told that I couldn't, so I was basically paying dues for nothing. At another job, however, a nursing home, the union I was in was very supportive and did a lot to help employees.

One thing I like about unions is protects people from being unfairly fired. I was a maintenance worker at that nursing home. I didn't have a lot of experience, but my coworker was very experience with many kinds of construction work. Once they asked him to put a wall in one of the offices to make two offices. he demanded a raise on the grounds that this work was out of his job description and the average price for a private contractor to do the job would be far more than his hourly raise. He was told they couldn't give him a raise because he was in the union. He asked to be taken out of the union. They agreed, gave him the raise (which was still far less than what they would have paid a contractor), and he did the work. Then they fired him about a month later coming to work a couple times maybe 20 minutes or so. The union would have fought for him and he would been able to keep his job had he still been a member.

The moral of this story is unions do still serve a purpose. The thing I don't like about unions is the corruption one often sees amongst the leaders and the fact that workers are forced to join. Other than that, I think they do still serve some purpose, though not as much as in the past and the purpose is often not worth the dues to be a member.

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WARNING: In the unlikely event of an accidental agreement with any or all points made in the above post, contact a clinical psychologist immediately.

The views expressed in the above post are not necessarily those of Joker and/or any of his affiliates.

"You have found the secret message. Do you have too much time on your hands? ...Let it go."

This problem would once again be solved easily in a fascist nation and its work place.

All types of business and industry will be transformed all into National Corporations, there will be 25 corporations in all producing everything needed in America, for every corporations there will be one Union meaning nation wide there will be only 25 Unions in the entire nation covering each kind of industry and business.

These Unions will be STATE RAN and it would be illegal for them to go on strike.

Once a month the Fascist state would meat with each of the Unions leaders and the leaders of each Corporation to discuss there problems and wants, the state then makes a ruling and that is it. Case close, the authority of the states decision cannot be over ruled.

In the fascist nation the corporations are regulated and controlled by the state, the state sets the wages prices, ect.

Fascism also bases the economy on the “production of the workers” which is actually the smartest way to run an economy. Saves a lot of money and jobs/

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I am launching a new fascist movement, contact me at
foreverfascist@yahoo.com

All races and religions Welcomed

then we'd kill the jews.......?

hmmm...unions run by the state and corporations run by the state. iow, unions run by the corporations, similar to japan, where there has never been a union strike and where unions are more concerned about corporate interests than workers.

Tell me, in a fascist government, where no one is allowed to criticize the government, what incentive would union leaders to voice complaints, and whats to stop the government from simply removing union leaders who make too many complaints and hire a union leader who knows when to keep his mouth shut?

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WARNING: In the unlikely event of an accidental agreement with any or all points made in the above post, contact a clinical psychologist immediately.

The views expressed in the above post are not necessarily those of Joker and/or any of his affiliates.

"You have found the secret message. Do you have too much time on your hands? ...Let it go."

Dig-up your forbears and ask them - good God, they are still stuck in Ronniespeak, 25 years on!

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"A man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened."

Bingo! The best thing workers can do for themselves now is dissipate the Big Unions and build their own coalitions from the ground up again- only to dissipate them when their purpose is served so they don't become bloated and obnoxious. Most of government and business would probably be well-served under this philosophy.

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"Man lives in the sunlit world of that which he believes to be reality. But unseen by most is an underworld, a place that is just as real... but not as brightly lit... A DARK SIDE!"
-opening from Tales From the Darkside

The fascism thing is getting a bit silly.
The point of a union is for important workers to show their value by defering from doing work, forcing employers to either find new peons who will most likely be less skilled and require training or to give raises and improve working conditions. What is the point of a union that can't strike?
Oh yeah. For show. Just like most institutions under fascism. You have to keep people convinced that they have some sovereignty over their lives or they lose morale or revolt. The biggest inefficiency in fascism is the cost of all that marketing (and the price when people realize they're being shafted on a large scale). That and it really sucks unless you read 1984 and then say to yourself "My god, that sounds like paradise."
But unions are mostly for show these days anyway. That and their own bureaucratic interests. I suppose the fascism wouldn't change them much.

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"Man lives in the sunlit world of that which he believes to be reality. But unseen by most is an underworld, a place that is just as real... but not as brightly lit... A DARK SIDE!"
-opening from Tales From the Darkside