1. Yes, there’s nothing like $51.5 billion dollars in profit when we’re paying $3.80 a gallon in gas to make you feel like helping the oil companies, is there?
Maybe that could be the TNGOP’s new slogan: Helping rich Republicans get richer.
2. Re: The arugula. A. Yes, they do. B. What? You’re too busy shopping at the fancy-pants Belmont Harris Teeter to know what they sell at Walmart?
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
Tiny Cat Pants 
Speaking of Walmart, the Wall Street Journal has a story today about them violating the Employee Free Choice Act (the one that prevents employers from pressuring their employees on how to vote): http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121755649066303381.html?mod=hps_us_pageone
Now, when the Wall Street Journal says you’re violating your employees’s rights, you’re really violating your employees’ rights.
$3.80 a gallon? You’re paying $3.80 a gallon? Luxury!!!! In my ‘hood we’re paying $3.89! Quit yer whining!!
:-)
I now officially get more email per day from Bill Hobbs/TNGOP than I get from my husband. Looks like I’m not alone in this problem.
Consider yourself blessed. We’re paying $4.19 up here.
NM, WalMart couldnt have violated the (misnamed) Employee Free Choice Act since it isnt a law. They have discussed with their employees the implications of the passage this legislation.
Why are you for a law that prevents employees from a secret ballot and opens them up to threats and intimidation?
Intimidation from whom? Tony Soprano? This ain’t the old days, when the mob essentially controlled the unions. The ONLY way for workers to have a level playing field in this kind of economy is through the ability to organize. We have become a country that rewards investment disproportionately at the expense of those doing the work.
The best way to keep unions out of your company? Pay your people a good wage, and treat them like an integral part of the business.
Mr. Mack, as my dad has been a UPS driver for 30 years now (and therefore a Teamster for 30 years now) and if you think there isn’t corruption still in the upper echelons of the union system, I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn at a hell of a price to sell to you.
Union leaders don’t need to know the names and addresses of those who vote ‘no’ on a unionization effort. Also, this could be a double edged sword. Should corporations know which employees voted yes on unionization?
The secret ballot is a hallmark of American democracy for a damn good reason.
Mr Mack, I have lived through two union campaigns and felt the pressure personally. In one campaign I signed a card because I was surrounded by a group of five who were relentless and wouldnt leave me alone. It was only when I was by myself and able to vote that I could express myself.
Im not talking about Tony Soprano. I am talking about a group of overzealous organizers who exhaust you and make life unbearable.
Lee and anonymous,
I can’t argue the point that intimidation still exists…hell, I know that unions aren’t perfect. OTOH, collective bargaining is the worker’s best bet. I’ve been reading a bit on “sector wide” models like in Germany, and I think there is a necessity for workers to have a say in the process. Intimidation takes many forms…and union busters are just as ruthless and relentless as union organizers.
Yeah, it’s working out great for GM.
Collectivism isn’t the worker’s best bet. Improving one’s skill set so that working at Mega-Lo Mart isn’t one’s only employment option is the worker’s best bet.
No Sarcastro, it’s better to stomp around in a circle, like a five-year-old, in front of your place of work, crying until you get what you want.
Remember kids, the job belongs to the employer. It does not belong to the employee. Make yourself valuable.
Actually Mack/Mr. Mack (Just curious… same person or different folks?) when it comes to labor/union issues, I generally stand on the sidelines.
I’ve seen a good chunk of the good, and a good chunk of the bad, so I take my labor issue stands a la carte.
Right in the mushy middle.
Sarcastro, someone HAS to work at MegloMart. And, yes, these people should not be expecting a lifestyle of the rich and famous…that said, they should reasonably expect to be paid a FAIR wage, and get breaks, and paid time off for illness, family emergencies and the like. Until unions showed up, Exador, people worked in the most deplorable conditions imaginable. No safety regs, (though, I admit, regulations can be a double edged sword) little pay, horrendous hours, etc.
AND A BIG FAT NO to the idea that the job belongs to the employer only. Thats a little like sayin the Tango belongs to the girl dancer. Pretty hard to perform those moves without support.
Oh, same person, Lee, I guess it depends on where and on what I am logged in….
Huh. The notion that employers should be able to amalgamate themselves into a large single entity (what a corporation is), but employees should *not* be able to amalgamate themselves into a large single entity (what a union is) is, well, a massive logic fail.
The notion that women should be able to bear children, but men should NOT is, well, a massive logic fail.
That is, assuming either men and women or employer and employee are the exact same thing.
They aren’t.
Why are you for a law that prevents employees from a secret ballot and opens them up to threats and intimidation?
Sounds to me like if they are being warned against voting democratic, they are already open to threats and intimidation.
Remember kids, the job belongs to the employer.
Except, that’s not true. The job belongs to the employer AND the employee. And everyone I’ve ever spoken with (if pushed far enough) agrees with that. There’s just disagreement on precisely how the power is divided.
“Sounds to me like if they are being warned against voting democratic, they are already open to threats and intimidation.”
Thank goodness for the secret ballot then.
Nothing tickles me more than listening to all these rugged libertarian individualists advocating that the best way to deal with corporations is to just cower in their shadow and do exactly what they tell us. Ayn Rand must be so proud.
If you don’t like working somewhere, if they do not treat you in a manner that you believe to be fair, take your skill set and go negotiate a better deal with another employer or go start your own business. That’s what John Galt would have done.
I leave the cowering in the shadows to the .edu types.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Keep talking, city boy.
Even worse, I’m gettting ready to apply to a job with a .gov. Good benefits though.
So if I get it, thanks everybody for paying for my new car.
My problem isnt with the unions, but with the change in the process for getting one into a company. I dont see why companies shouldnt be allowed to present their side of the case against the electing a union, nor why we should do away with a secret ballot in any situation.
A reasonable objection, on its face. However, one assumes the company has had ample time and opportunity to put forward its “best case behavior” (conditions without a union) and has been found wanting — or else union organizers would have been shown the door by contented workers who believed their interests were congruent with the company’s profit-maximizing. Unions don’t create discontented workers, though they may help workers to name and hold accountable the sources of their discontent. Another thing to recall is that this isn’t a case of two competing groups coming in, for example, to make a presentation and win a contract. The playing field is not level. Companies are….well, they hold the power of the paycheck (as their workers are not working for the hell of it and presumably need the money). The words of a boss, as the breadgiver, are unavoidably intimidatory from the get-go — even if the stated purpose is educational. (Shortly put, a union organizer can’t fire your ass if you do something he doesn’t like and your boss can.)
So if you are unskilled and of low intelligence, you deserve to be treated like crap? Many people do not have the ability to obtain high paying jobs or run a business, whether through lack of aptitude or through circumstances out of their control.
If you are unskilled and of low intelligence and being treated like crap, then work on obtaining some skills.
A monkey (with no college degree) could learn a programming language in a year and make pretty damn decent money. I hear there are a few south-asians doing it without even getting a firm grasp on english.
Go and do likewise.
WalMart couldnt have violated the (misnamed) Employee Free Choice Act since it isnt a law.
Aw, that’s cute. Using that analogy, you can’t run a red light, either, since there is no law that mentions the specific traffic light you ignored. But we do have a law that required drivers to obey traffic signs and signals, and failing to do so is a violation. Just as employers are bound, by law, to adhere to certain standards of conduct with their employees, although the standards are (like the location of traffic lights) set by regulatory committees and not by legislative bodies. In this case, there does seem to have been a violation:
They have discussed with their employees the implications of the passage this legislation.
They “discussed” the implications in such a way as to make the employees feel pressured to vote a certain way, to such an extent that the employees complained to the regulators about it.
NM, your exact quote was
“Speaking of Walmart, the Wall Street Journal has a story today about them violating the Employee Free Choice Act (the one that prevents employers from pressuring their employees on how to vote”
It IS impossible to violate a law/ordinance/statute that has yet to be enacted.
Dumbass
Dumbass
Aw, that’s cute.
Stupid anonymous, free speech is only for approved, left-wing viewpoints.
Hey nm, have you got any Federal Election Rules concerns about unions telling their members how to vote?
Because that DOES happen all the time.
Then again, I guess we should do away with private voting for our government, too, since there’s nothing wrong with everybody knowing how everybody votes.
The traffic light analogy was a fine work of fiction.
No one I see here has asked Anonymous to shut up, Ex. That’s your fantasy.
Unions may advise their members on how to vote, but as Bridgett has already noted, they can’t fire the members or deny them union benefits if the members don’t listen. Gee, just as local politicians can do. Or leaders of large political organizations associated with specific religious viewpoints.
I’m waiting to hear what was wrong with the traffic light analogy. Yeah, I was typing too fast and didn’t put “NLRB regulations” instead of “EFCA.” So sue me. Anonymous was abusively non-responsive to my main point, which is that employees of Walmart feel that they are being pressured to vote for their employers’ interests and not their own.
“abusively non-responsive” to your point?
Sorry, I subscribe to the heliocentrist view of the solar system, not the nm-centric one that you do.
My speech reference was to the idea of Walmart presenting their view of the effects of a union and EFCA.
Yeah,unions just advise their members!
Good God, you’re naive.
Oh, sorry, Ex. I just assumed that in calling me out by name, Anonymous was claiming to be responding to me. Truly, I am a solipsist of the worst sort. Good grief.
Certainly a college degree is irrelevant to someone’s intelligence level; some of the smartest people I have worked with dropped out of school after eighth grade.
But having had coworkers who could not be taught to read a ruler, I do not believe everyone is capable of acquiring skills such as programming languages.
That’s true, lyrl. One of the smartest guys I know is entirely self-taught. Also, I can attest that some of the biggest dunces out there are on college campuses.
My point was not that you need a degree to be smart, in fact, I was saying that you didn’t need to spend four years in college in order to get a decent job.
I do not believe everyone is capable of acquiring skills such as programming languages.
I have to second that. I know a couple of utterly brilliant individuals who are fortunate if they can figure out how to turn a computer on, much less program one. Different people excel in different fields.
My point was not that you need a degree to be smart, in fact, I was saying that you didn’t need to spend four years in college in order to get a decent job.
Being smart and getting a decent job are not necessarily related to one another. It’s increasingly hard for people (however smart or skilled) to get (particularly skilled) jobs without a college degree. That little piece of paper is often required before an employer will even consider an employee.
Not to mention….if everyone followed Ex’s advice, and learned a prgramming language, that skill would have little value in the market. Once again, there remains those that can only offer the most basic of services. So, ok, no one should expect to retire comfortably from a lifetime service with Walmart. However, while there, they should be valued for whatever it is that they do, and afforded certain rights as workers and neighbors and friends.
This is one of the reasons that social security is perhaps our most important social safety net.
If you think there’s going to be anything for you from social security, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.