Lotus, have you ever belonged to a Union? Look at Arizona…right to work state. Very non-union. Now look at the wages there. Very low! Unions raise the prevailing wage for a given area. Even non union jobs wages will follow suit. In Az it is either minimum wage or or you are wealthy. That is it.
Clinton lied and he was tried…Bush lied and men died…Nuff said!
George W. Bush-a wholly owned subsidiary of Halliburton.
Clinton may have lied and got called on the carpet, Bush may have lied and gotten away with it, and yes many men (and many women) have died, defending our freedom by fighting in a far-off land. If there is one thing that Clinton and Bush were in agreement on was the threat Saddam’s continued violation and defiance of the Gulf War cease-fire agreement and related U.N. resolutions posed to our security here at home.
If someone brings up the WMD thing, my analogy is that Saddam’s Iraq was on “parole” (the armistice and related U.N. resolutions), and we busted his door down because we though he had a stash of drugs, and we didn’t find any drugs because he either had time to flu***hem down the toilet or he was going around letting people think he had drugs to make people think he was a player. We didn’t find any drugs, but we “violated him on his parole” anyway. There are a lot of other tough guys in the neighborhood, but we don’t have any parole violations on them but we are keeping a real careful eye. One guy decided it was better to come clean (Qadaffi), so that case is being resolved by diplomatic means. From the example of Libya, you also know what coming clean looks like compared to what Saddam was doing (i.e. shooting at our planes).
And if we are talking unions, one thing that American unions have been famous for has been their anti-Communism during the heyday of the Cold War and their America First stand for any disputes outside their borders.
If the unions have become knee-jerk anti-Republican, and anti-George Bush, I guess that is their right, and I suppose Mr. Bush expected too much to support steel tariffs to help his corporate buddies along with their union workers and to expect and recognition from union people on this. And yes, there are legitimate reasons to criticize
Whatever
[quote]
QUOTE: Originally posted by Paul Milenkovic
My grandpa was a union carpenter so I am familiar with the positions of labor advocates on these issues. He was an anti-Nazi pro-Socialist in his native Hungary and later Yugoslavia (and now Serbia), and he saw being a Democrat and a union member in Chicago to where he emigrated as a natural fit, but he had seen a lot, both in Chicago and in the old country, and he had some cynical views about unions and whether they were really helping the little guy.
Scabmechanics – I like to pronounce that as one word, and that has a scary feel, especially when I have my wife out on a trip on Northwest (when you travel on business you often have to go where you are told and you don’t get to honor union picket lines) and Northwest is experiencing mechanical delays out the wazoo right now.
Terrible people these scabmechanics. Suppose these scabmechanics keep Northwest out of Chapter 11 and help other union people keep their pensions, or suppose they keep Northwest out of liquidation so, I don’t know, Southwest doesn’t take over their routes, where Southwest has an entirely different “labor agreements” (don’t know if they are even union). I suppose that makes the whole of Southwests’s labor force scabpilots, scabattendents, and scabmechanics as well.
I empathize with the Northwest mechanics because Northwest wants to chop their pay by a quarter and chop the number of mechanics in half. This is not some w
Well guys, I’m not a company man. I like to take the side of the little guy, but this situation sucks.
Northwest is like a sinking ship, in large part because of rising fuel prices. Even if they get rid of the mechanics, and outsource the work, they may still go bankrupt just like United.
The consessions Northwest wanted were massive, 26% pay cut plus lots of jobs lost. No union in it’s right mind can accept an offer where they lose money and flush nearly one third of the rank and file down the toilet. They would rather all go down together, than accept and then draw straws. The mechanics are betting that the airline can’t live without them. This is a true test of wills.
OK, so you are on a ship in the middle of the ocean, and it’s sinking. What do you do?
By the way, one of my neighbors is a mechanic for Northwest, and my step brother is a pilot.
As a union member, I must say it is a very good thing for keeping decent wages and benefits and preventing management from running roughshod over the workers. Just look at how hard Wal-Mart fights to keep unions out so they can pay third world wages with no benefits.
Unfortunately, this situation may be in part the result of all the positive union efforts of the past. Each contract renewal, they manage to squeeze out a little better deal from the company, for the membership. That’s the good part.
The bad part comes when the company’s economic situation goes into reverse. I’m not suggesting that the union should just roll over and take what the company is offering, but this is the source of the impass. The union feels that the company could make a better offer than what they have. They might even be willing to accept a 10% pay cut and a 20% job loss, which is a far cry from Northwest’s last best offer.
I’m not at all thrilled with the congress. They seem to think that it’s OK to line their pockets with money from lobbyists representing big business. What would happen if businesses could no longer buy a vote in Washington. The little guy might actually get his voice back. By the way, the new bankruptcy law, is a direct result of a push from the credit card companies.
So you just don’t listen, when a valid argument is placed forth, you just ignore it, so I won’t bother to say anything, though he is pretty much right. Someone told me to stop with the politics, I will, no reason to argue such blatant nonsense.[:D]
Good. Blatant nonsense??? Keep taking pictures of the pretty trains…foamer.
Regarding your quote:
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Just what exactly does Southwest Airlines have to do with a strike at Northwest Airlines??
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Southwest’s hardworking line employees are union, many TWU, also ALPA, and would most certainly take tremendous offense at your characterization of them as “scabs”. Particularly since they have absolutely nothing to do with either Northwest’s labor troubles or Northwest’s current approach to those troubles. In fact, with the exception of DTW, Southwest does not fly into either of NWA’s other 2 fortress hubs, MSP or MEM.
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Perhaps you should consider getting your facts straight before spouting off your peurile, unsubstantiated and inflammatory invective.
I do NOT work for SWA. Nor does any member of my family.
Southwest’s business model may actually be the envy of Northwest management. The question has been raised as to whether a full service carrier like Northwest can change itself to a low cost no frills carrier like Southwest.
In the event Northwest would go chapter 13 instead of the much expected chapter 11, there would be a lot of empty gates at the Twin Cities airport, as well as a lot of travelers without a flight. My guess is that all of the remaining airlines would expand their service to fill the void, though we would never be the hub that we are today.
My facts aren’t straight with respect to the union status of workers at Southwest. In fact a raised a question mark regarding their form of labor representation. But one thing I am pretty sure of based on extensive reading of news coverage in Aviation Week over the years is that Southwest doesn’t have the same wage scales and labor agreements that the “majors” have, and while that is only one part, it is part of their competitive advantage.
I also didn’t initiate the use of the term “scab” to describe a replacement worker, who could be a laid off worker from another airline with the necessary skills or could even be a management or supervisory employee told to do a different job “or else.”
I happen to think the term “scab” represents a lot of hate and the use of this word to rally people to the union movement is part of its darker side. I have made some positive comments about unions and I also have made some critical comments about unions, but if unions are completely above approach and beyond even any constructive criticism, than I suppose my remarks are indeed “peurile (sic), unsubstantiated and inflammatory.”
My point is that if a person is going to hurl the hate-filled word “scab” at the Northwest replacement mechanics, and yes, there is a reason to hate “scabs” as breaking labor solidarity and hurting all workers, where do you draw the line? Are replacement mechanics “scabs” but are the Northwest pilots and flight attendants not “scabs” because they are permitting the airline to function by not honoring the picket lines. If Northwest goes out of business and Southwest picks up some Northwest routes (a hypothetical), are the Southwest union workers in turn “scabs” for working on those routes where fellow Northwest workers once had jobs? Where do you draw the line?
[qu
As a local government employee I belong to AFSCME and the biggest raise we have gotten over the past 15 years or so has been 3% while at the same time paying a greater share of our health insurance so we are barely keeping even or perhaps losing ground when you consider inflation. We cannot strike and the work force has shrunk as retiring workers have not been replaced. Service cuts and increased use of machines enable the remaining employees to handle the workload. Some managerial positions have been eliminated also, so overall there has been a cooperative effort to control costs while maintaining the status quo.
It was a strike against a bankrupt railroad that was the final nail in the coffin of the Rock Island in 1980[:(][:(!][xx(].
I meant your blatant liberal nonsense. I am quite interested in the subject. I subscribe to trains for the business information as much as about being a rail fan and taking pictures. What is a foamer?
James,
We all come here from different places and situations in life. And its nice to see a bright, articulate young man as you posting here on this board. But, it is obvious that you have limited your intake of information to one point of view. I would suggest that you broaden your base of knowledge by taking in a boarder buffet of information from multiple sources. Read about both sides of the issues.
Jim
It’s what RR people call railfans, not sure what the actual meaning is as to foamer, besides we railfans foam at the mouth for trains??
I’m not in favor of scabs but I need work. Here is a pic of me the other day at the line…
This is me 2 days later…
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QUOTE: Originally posted by SP9033
I do try, look at all the facts you can get, and make a logical choice. If the job conditions were terrible, nobody would work there, and if they were illegal, they would get sued. Surely ironken is guilty of the same, or worse. Since much of his statements have been disproved, or are pure opinion.
I just have one question that the article didn’t mention.
[?][?] Why are these guys striking?[?][?]
I wonder if the Union isn’t trying to force the airline to raise their wages. One other thing that bothers me: What is wrong with these scabs, they are honest men doing an honest job. Part of capitalism, if the job needs done somebody is willing to do it, nothing wrong with that is there? A Great railroad story I read about a strike is out of Short lines A Collection of Classic American Railroad Stories The story The Nerve of Foley, very good story, shows how an engineer who was laid off from another railroad due to a strike comes to the one in the book (I forget the name), he is the hero of the story and in the end rescues one of the strikers sons, he isn’t evil