Reviving labor unions is, sadly, anathema to the right; even many mainstream liberals resist the idea. But if economic growth depends on rewarding effort, we should all worry that the middle classes aren’t getting pay increases commensurate with the wealth they create for their bosses. Bosses aren’t going to fix this problem. That’s the job of unions, and finding ways to rebuild them is liberalism’s most challenging task. A bipartisan effort to revive the labor movement is hardly likely, but halting inequality’s growth will depend, at the very least, on liberals and conservatives better understanding each other’s definition of where the problem lies.
i am fed up with a government that shows no respect to workers - without whom it would crumble - and confused why the union refuses to fight with all it has to protect the hard won right - which people in the past died for - to collectively bargain with the employer.
i am also confused why “the public” and “parents” who go on and on about how voting is so important and its a right that people - women and people of colour especially - fought and died for, get up in arms when teachers - many of whom are women and people of colour - attempt to protect a right that those before them fought and died for - the right to collectively bargain. teach your child that they deserve respect in the workplace and you’ll contribute to a better world for all. teach them that if they stand up to authority when it behaves egregiously they’ll be fired and you teach them to usher in fascism.
H/t @SidRyan_OFL.
But of course we don’t need unions any more.
(via Union Thugs)
(h/t Pro Labor Alliance Inc.)
Twinkie CEO Admits Company Took Employees Pensions and Put It Toward Executive Pay | Alternet
But let’s blame the unions.
Lincoln on labour and capital.
(h/t Mike Belmore)
“Fuck your unpaid internship.”
This was one of the more colour-ful slogans scrawled on a sign at the peak of the Occupy movement. Held up by young people who stand to lose large from financial-crisis fallout, placards like these are refreshingly frank refusals of the mantra that we must be willing to do “more for less” nowadays. A 21st-century update on Bartleby’s famous reply to the duties assigned by his boss – “I’d prefer not to” – the intern invective expresses the frustration bubbling among youth facing mounting student debt and diminishing prospects for employment.
Walmart Workers Ask For Basic Rights, Walmart Calls Riot Police
What you’re supporting when you shop at Walmart.
Doesn’t say whether they pepper-sprayed anybody.
- And last month, 780 machinists at a Caterpillar Inc. parts plant in Joliet, Illinois, voted to end their three and a half month strike, accepting a six-year contract that contained almost all of the concessions the company demanded.
- These contemporary disputes, however, hide an even more dramatic historical fact: The strike has almost disappeared from American life.
Source: CNN
Citizen, cyclist, father, diver, cheap-laugh aficionado, sanctimonious wanker, #BadJew. Thoughts are my own.
