Within the past few years my oldest daughter took a job as an attorney working for the Federal Government. She has since left the Govt. to go into the "real world". She has stated vehemently that the true problems we have with our government lie with the labor union choke hold. She uncovered outright theft of millions in her agency and was unable to have the employees involved fired. Sorry unions..your time is passed. You union leader guys need to go get yourselves a real job. Kirk

All institutions are susceptible to corruption Jeff, even the church. The fact is there is a direct correlation between the drop in Union membership and the plight of the American worker. Without the threat of organized labor employers are free to treat workers as they please. I can tell you dozens of stories of friends who have been squeezed at work these last few years; employers demanding salaried employees to work longer hours or expecting hourly employees to work off the clock, employers cutting staff and doubling work loads, teachers and first responders taking huge pay cuts, and on and on. If the unions have problems then clean them up, don't shut them down. We need them now more than ever.

I hate to be so partisan but the GOP is clearly the party of, by, and for management. While not all management is bad (I've been management), corporate management is decidedly anti-labor. In a world now run by bean counters, when corporations look to pad the bottom line to improve share price and pump up executive bonuses, the first place they look is labor which is always their greatest expense.

Again ask yourself where all this union bashing comes from. The "Unions had their purpose in the day but they abused their power through corruption" is a well crafted line designed to pit us against each other and diminish our power to organize.

And yes, I guess I think that anyone who fights to help improve the lives of their fellow man is somewhat heroic. Folks like you for example. First responders are totally undervalued in the scheme of things.

No you are lying Brian unless all your friends that work off the clock are democrats. Then I would understand their stupidity for putting up with illegal abuse from their employer.
Your union heroes trespass on private property terrorizing innocent children in their own homes. You go ahead and praise them all you want. I'm in my fifty seven and have never worked or a union (by choice) and have never tolerated abuse from anyone. Certainly not my employer. Unions are just another bully to contend with. That's okay. Bring em on.

What. pray tell, would one "need" a union for? To harass people who aren't members who work without a contract? To go on strike because they don't like the fact that union workers make $18/hour instead of $18.50? To threaten people who work a part-time job on the side to make ends meet?

Thugs? Scumbags? Thieves? Hope and Change > Snark and Rage.

You been misinformed. Change the channel.

Brian, you are absolutely wrong and misinformed yourself. I have the book and have read the book penned in his own hand where he states clearly the way he believes and his intentions. Too bad his koolaid-drinking followers can't see the forest for the trees. I am only quoting what he has already stated.....so you are the one who is misinformed! You need to change the channel and wake up, sir.

Sorry Cindy but Obama is no Communist/Socialist/Marxist and has never claimed to be. Do you have a specific quote in mind?

You are wrong, Brian. He wrong it in his own hand. You need to read what he has written and decide again. His actions back up his claims. He just refuses to come clean with the American public and say it now because that will goof up his plans, but he is successfully dismantling this nation and moving us to a one-world government system. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck. Sorry you refuse to see the light. As a banker/businessman, you should be able to read the handwriting on the wall....as well as the book written in the man's own hand. Come on, Brian. Don't let the DEM label and your liberal ideals get in the way of reality. I was "born a Democrat", but in the 90's I re-evaluated what each party stood for at that time. I chose Republican....not that I agree with everything, but that I agree with most of it. All one has to do to really open their eyes is look at the members of the Democratic Socialists of America and identify how many Dems in our political system are there. Don't lie for your current Pres., Brian! Wake up!

oooops... "He wrong it in his own hand" should be HE WROTE......

I don't need to pay a union to guarantee anything on your list. I just ask for a day's pay for a days work. I have always given that and always received it. If I don't like my employer, I can suck it up, find another, or become my own employer. That goes for everyone else.

" Abolition of “right to work” laws, which discourage union organizing "

Horse Squeeze! That's tyranny and we don't need.

Larry, not going to work for the libs. They need these rules to keep the evil corporations from taking advantage of the ignorant Americans. Because we all know that the poor average person is too dumb to fend for themselves. (This is where we need a sarcasm font) Plus, not only is the government the answer to all of our ills, how else will we keep the sheeple in line if we don't give the government as much power as possible?

And, as long as I'm at it...

1. Equal pay for equal work - we have this. It's called negotiating when hired. That's part of your work, so if you didn't negotiate well enough, then your work is not equal to others. We don't need the government to enforce this.

2. No discrimination in hiring, pay or promotions - fine, if you can prove discrimination. But, promoting a white person over one of color does not equal automatic discrimination. Sometimes somebody is just a better employee.

3. The end to wage theft - Not really sure what this means, either. Care to elaborate?

4. Safe equipment and appropriate training - already covered by OSHA. At least the equipment part. Training is in the company's best interest. Probably doesn't need to be regulated.

5. Stronger government enforcement of occupational safety and health laws - already stringent enough. I fail to see the benefit in giving government more power.

6. Health insurance for everyone - Exactly. Taken out of their checks. The way it's supposed to be.

7. Health and other benefits for workers’ partners - you do realize these have costs, right? Regardless of who supplies it? So you want to, what, reduce the pay to the employee? Have less employees and more unemployment? Contrary to typical liberal belief, money is not just shat out, it comes from somewhere, and is in a limited supply.

8. Paid sick leave and family medical leave - Got that. Mostly. And go back and see #1.

9 A ban of the box asking about felony convictions from applications - I still want to know if the person I'm hiring is a thief or something related to the position I'm putting them in. Just sayin...it may matter.

10. Abolition of “right to work” laws, which discourage union organizing - and benefit economies and make for better pay increases overall and bring companies into areas, providing jobs.

11. Collective bargaining rights for all workers - See #10.

12. A guaranteed living wage tied to inflation - Define living wage. And what part of somebody having to support a family of four makes their work worth that wage? You want a living wage, make yourself attractive and necessary to employers. Make them more money than you cost. Or don't have a family of four until you are.

Karsten, clearly you are just one of those types who feel that companies exist to make a profit. Unions provide a “fair” and equal environment for any and all.
Just take Chicago for example. The teachers union is only demanding a 35% pay increase while millions of Americans have no job at all. Clearly the success rate in Chicago schools justifies the increase. It’s no wonder that the crime rate is so high in Chicago. Thuggary is the only skill possessed by the up and coming community.

Chris - Hehehehe.....

Sad. Isn't it? I think it's part of the whole cradle to grave mentality of liberals. As if a man or woman isn't intelligent or strong enough to survive without assistance.

Why teach a person to fish when you can hook em up with EBT? I am not against assisting fellow mankind but I do expect results and accountability when I am working 12 hours to pay for your food. Sorry... I digress

Oh yea... and I heard you were a chick with nasty pictures on your Facebook page. Shame on you.

What's that link again?

Not a chick, and no idea what pictures on the facebook page. All pretty normal. Except possibly my Obama gallery....

My apologies. I wish not to tarnish your reputation sir due to a comment or few from user "Athen's Mom".

Take care. : )

I knew I had seen this crap from somewhere. Let me guess George, you love the views of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Bill_of_Rights

You liberals just can't stand the thought of an individual succeeding on his own. What is the deal with this idea that everyone needs help to wipe their own butt? This is exactly why Conservatives take such offense to Obama's lame "You Didn't Build That" BS. The hell I didn't build it. I am still building it and if I don't build it, it won’t get built. GEEZ!!!
WHEW!!! IN... out... in... out... in

I thank God that I was born to assume personal responsibility and teach the same to my children. It's you who depend on everyone else (share the wealth mentality) that couldn't change a flat tire if your life depended on it. As Sam Kinison used to say… Pick Up The Check!!! Pick It Up!!!

Chris, please do tell. I don't really take anything AM says with any kind of seriousness anyway. But I would love to know what the details of this are...

If you want, look me up on facebook (I'm easy to find, not hiding behind some moniker like Athens Mama) and do a friend request and tell me there, if you don't want to put it here for everybody to see. However, if you're doing it on my account, don't worry about it. I've never said anything I'm ashamed of and have never posted anything that I shouldn't have....

Never mind, I found the discussion. We have children that we get to deal with every day, and try to be offended by mindless, stupid crap. But these people that can't even put down who they really are and then try to call out others are the real cowards out there. Not all that don't post full name (I haven't seen you do any of the sorts of things these other two do - namely GD and AM) are problems, just those that post all the time and then make snyde comments about others and their friends and such. I say "screw em"......

Karsten, I was actually looking for it and had to run to the store. I just remembered that you were thought to be female with a questionable Facebook. I always look at it this way; Unless you are providing my internet access, you opinion is a mouse click from my memory.

I know too how many feel about real user names online. Honestly, "Chris" is sort of a nickname for me from way back. It's not my legal name. I choose not to use my legal name online from fear of Identity theft or simply having my expression leveraged against me somehow. As much as I enjoy reading, responding, criticizing and receiving criticism, I can always walk away. Now my IP address may be another issue. : )

You just gotta ask ... HOW much of that 71K goes to dues?

Where is Brian? He should know how much is paid to these ring leaders.

Certainly it can't compare to the satisfaction the teachers receive everyday by making a huge difference for the community.

Why are you angry at other workers because they are making a decent wage?
Why don't you get mad at the employers, or the large corporations whose main interest is to make gigantic profits for their shareholders, not the interest of their workers.

Maureen, you sound like a Communist....or at the least, a Socialist. Large corporations? Shareholders? Gigantic profits? What do you know about corporations? Do you truly believe corporations are "the evil rich"? Sounds like it. Capitalism is the name of the game. Without it your freedoms just are no longer existent. I know many in this nation are so shortsighted they think Socialism is a better option. I encourage all those who feel that way to go to a Communist or Socialist country and try it out for a while. Find out how limiting their freedoms really are. Interesting how Democrat leaders spout the rhetoric about the evil rich, etc....while they are some of the richest in the nation. Their sheeple follow blindly and falsely accuse everyone else of being "rich". I can name a number of Dems who have more money than brains. The socialist spouting Dem sheeple don't even acknowledge their lying leaders. Interesting.

Cindy, you're confusing capitalism with corporatism. Corporatism is a greater threat to our constitution than communism ever was. Maureen is correct. Corporations, by design (in fact by law), have only one goal: to maximize profits for shareholders. They have no stake in the common good, no loyalty to country, no sense of patriotic duty.

Labor is the number one expense for any company so it is only natural that corporations seek to find the cheapest labor available to them. It doesn't matter if that labor is found in Ecuador or China or anywhere else for that matter. If corporations can drive down our standard of living and find people willing to work in poor conditions for substandard wages here at home then that's fine by them too.

The richest woman in the world, an Australian invested heavily in her country's mining industry, was recently bemoaning the fact that African miners are willing to work for $2 a day in much more dangerous condition. She suggested importing these workers to work Australia's mines. Sound familiar?

No, she's not confusing anything Brian. She has you and your group pegged precisely as Socialist.
You are the one confused. The purpose of a corporation is to grow faster than the rate of inflation. Period.
As a person that owned and managed four manufacturing sites in China, one in Singapore and two in Japan, I can tell you that the workers are treated very well there. Workers line up for jobs everyday. If one of the employees is sick, they send in a relative to insure their job is completed and retained. Chinese workers especially are grateful for any work. The government isn't taking care of them after all. To have transportation to the plant provided, meals during working hours, AND a salary is a dream come true. Many came from farming where wages are $1 per month. To get a job that pays $1 per day is unreal to them. Liberals in the US think they are being mistreated because they aren't being paid union wages. I suggest you take a busload of union organizers and drop them off in front of the plant. Tell them they can only work when the union allows it but in return they can pay the unions for this privilege. Be sure to pack toe tags for the organizers.

Right David. Workers in China are treated so well that Apple's Foxconn plant had to install a net around the building to keep workers from jumping off the roof. Give me a break. Worker abuse is rampant in much of the world and if the union busters have their way it will be here in another generation.

I've never seen anyone jumping off a building. I've never seen nets around buildings. But there are mentally ill people everywhere, I suppose even in China. The good news....for every individual that commits suicide, there are 100's more waiting to take their job. Hungry for their job. Begging for their job. No unions necessary, no mistreatment of the workers. As I said, we provided transportation, meals, healthcare, and a salary. We employed about 2800 workers but had 100,000 applications. Maybe 90,000 of these were just looking for a place to jump off a building.

David, Thank you for your insight. Sure is good to hear from someone who has seen corporate America and the corporate world. Without it.....well, I hate to think what we would be like without our capitalist society...or what's left of it. The brainwashing is extensive. Difficult to get folks to see the bottom line in business, and to see that the evil corporations are "owned" by the shareholders....who might just be you and me. I'm not rich, but I'm paying taxes like I am. I am, however, not sitting around griping about Wall Street, what others have that I don't, and how the gov'ment owes me a living. I'd settle with getting some of these high taxes returned....but that's not going to happen. Obama and Michelle have to pay for their vacation this week. :)

Jeffrey, all due respect. It's not a few days out of school that these Chicago children need be concerned. It's the potential of spending 7 or 8 full years (if that) under these Union Workers that their future might depend.

Tammy- I think or goes beyond that- the end justifies the means, and never let facts interfe with wishful reality.

@Maureen Middlebrooks
You are correct!

This is the South. Love it or leave it! We quite frankly don't care which.

That's right Chris, you must be a very good Republican because just like what the Republicans are doing with the campaign; you take sentences out of context and in a mean spirited way put your own spin on them AND you brag about it. Go back to watching your Fox News.

@Cindy
Your use of the word "thug" makes your argument a fallacy(Argumentum ad Hominem) and destroys your credibility.In truth most unions members freely elect their own representatives in free elections and are not thugs.That term thug is normally used by right-wing talk shows.

George, FYI. I've been a "union" member. I know a thug when I see one....and when I meet one. From your own comments, it doesn't sound like you know much about the current workforce in our country. Maybe you are out of the loop. I don't have an "argument"....just information and opinions....just like you. You can try to cover for the union bosses (aka thugs) if you like....but they are so transparent you are wasting your precious time. We AIN'T blind! :)

David, I LOVE your comments! I'm still laughing about "organizers" spending the night in a southern jail. No wonder some of the northern unionized companies have opened locations in southern "right to work" states. We don't always take kindly to somebody "in our business"....telling us what to do. We may smile, say "bless your heart", but we will get even....with a smile on our sweet southern faces. My grandma used to say, "There's more than one way to skin a cat." (Figure of speech, fellow animal lovers.)

We don't push workers off the roof. But its difficult to hold the hand of everyone on China.

You and Brian must be drinking from the same cup. Or smoking from the same pipe.

@David
Drinking from the cup of truth seeking!

Switch cups. Brian's is broken.

But that's what's so wrong. Working conditions in China aren't deplorable. There are deplorable conditions in China as in every communist country where poverty reigns. But the lucky ones with jobs in China are just that, the lucky ones. They can now afford food, a residence, etc.

I was just speaking of conditions in general, not the working conditions.

Hot off the press, even Romney found them deplorable... http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/09/romney-camp-silent-on-whether-bain-purchased-brutal-chinese-factory.php

http://tinyurl.com/2wqrfjf
http://tinyurl.com/23mothb
http://tinyurl.com/d6vcpgz

Well, if Romney found something deplorable, we should listen. That's about 1000 times more than Obama has found! :) Let's fire the incompetent one (Obummer) who still thinks he is God. What happens when someone has risen to a level to which they do not deserve, can't do the job, doesn't want to do the job, just wants the benefits and the paycheck? Yep. Fire him! :)

"What happens when someone has risen to a level to which they do not deserve, can't do the job, doesn't want to do the job, just wants the benefits and the paycheck?"

They do photo ops building houses for Habitat for Humanity.

Cindy, our economy flourished when corporations were held in check. In the world I grew up in Anti-trust laws were strictly enforced to prevent "too big to fail" and allow the American entrepreneurial spirit to grow. Instead of being paid a substandard wage to work for some huge faceless corporation like WalMart folks were encouraged to start their own businesses.

We were a nation of shop keepers and manufacturers. There were Men's Shops and Dress shops, Hardware stores and lumber yards. Independent grocers and pharmacies. People had ownership in their communities because they were dependent on each other for their livelihoods. That was the American dream and thanks to unbridled corporatism it barely exists anymore.

I'm afraid you have been sold a bill of goods by the corporations that want to keep you beholden to them. You think you have ownership in a company because you own stock? Unless you are wealthy enough to own a sufficient amount of stock you have zero say in how that company is run.

RE: "Since those of us who are corporate "owners" aka "shareholders" are generally very patriotic, it stands to reason that the corporations are also patriotic..."

I'm sorry, but it does not stand to reason that corporations are patriotic because their owners are patriotic any more than it stands to reason that a shovel or a ceiling fan is patriotic because their owners are patriotic.

Corporations can't be patriotic because corporations are a legal concept identified on a piece of paper or within a series of 0s and 1s on a computer chip. They can be created at will and dissolved at will. Like shovels and ceiling fans, corporations are inanimate. Like tools created to more easily accomplish goals such as digging a hole or cooling a room, a corporation is a tool used to raise funds to start and grow a business. We don't exist to serve corporations. To the contrary, they exist to serve us.

Without our corporate structure in this country, where would all your goods be produced, marketed, and sold? To be clear, if people don't want to enjoy the traditional benefits of corporations--primarily limited owner liability--then they're free to invest in sole proprietorships and partnerships.