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Sep 15, 2022Liked by Robert Reich

I don’t understand how business owners and corporate boards can ignore the needs of workers. What kind of sad comment is this on the business ethic in America? When will the country come together and embrace the idea of prosperity for all people?

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Corporate GREED in this country is rampant. Employers do not get it that you can't either cut back on work hours or try to enforce putting in more unscheduled hours. People actually have lives and families that they want to enjoy. Unions are having a resurgence because employers are being short sighted by not treating their employees better.

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“The question is will they do that before Friday? Or will they force the nation to endure days or weeks of economic chaos?”

Oh, the latter. NO QUESTION.

That way Biden and the Democrats get blamed and the “business friendly, never met a wage earner we didn’t want to screw over” Republicans have a better chance of gaining power.

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While I understand the value of unions and the right to strike, the most effective way to get workers the protections they need is to elect congressional and legislative members who will pass supportive laws. This November is our next chance.

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founding
Sep 15, 2022·edited Sep 15, 2022

Can't we use that same line for 1000 different professions? "X industry has never been as profitable. Why can't they treat their workers better?" Of course, the answer is they ABSOLUTELY can, but history has show that without enforced regulations, worker organization, or both, they simply won't. You don't hear this any business school, but exploitation dressed up as innovation has long been America's true competitive advantage.

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It always comes back to corporate greed. Every. Single. Time.

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This problem also part of the lack of access to medical care in rural areas and employers failing to value physical / mental health. One of the reasons we are the only advanced industrial nation to lack a national health care plan and rank last among that group of nations in health statistics, despite paying more per person for health the rest of the advanced industrial nations.

We value sick care often when it is too late to be effective but health promotion is left to big agriculture and big pharmaceutical/ medical companies with predictable outcome of poor nutrition and health but higher corporate profits. With a national health plan employers and the country would pay less for health care per person and get better results by promoting health/ preventing disease and controlling excess corporate profits.

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They'll probably do what they usually do. If forced to grant concessions, companies won't cut into profit or upper management compensation; they'll raise fares. Every time you write about better worker compensation, I cringe. I'm retired. It's too late for me. They cut my pay in half and took my pension, and the public happily let them do it, believing it'd mean cheaper fares for them. Instead, the company gave obscene bonuses to upper management, rewarded stockholders, cut back on service, and raised fares. They richly rewarded upper management and stickholders and penalized customers after cutting worker compensation. What will they do when they have to raise worker compensation? They won't take it out of CEO pay or profits. They'll raise their prices, making customers pay. Retirees can't afford better worker compensation. Workers can't even afford better compensation. And taxes on profits? Who pays for that? Not CEOs or stockholders but customers. As long as management pay is tied to increased profits, management greed and ego can't let profits decline. Something has to happen to cause worker compensation increases to be taken from upper management compensation and profits. Until then, retirees can't afford better worker compensation, and workers are only fooling themselves, thinking their increases are actually benefitting their overall financial and quality-of-life picture. We keep seeing numbers on how wages have declined. They will keep declining relative to CEO compensation and prices until CEOs and profits, not customers, pay for those wages and other benefits.

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I hope railroad executives get their butts kicked. They deserve it. They should have to work like that for a few months (or years) and see what it's like!

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Sounds very Mussolini to me, it didn't work out to good for those rail roads & their bosses either. It seems as though some titans are living in a historical time warp and haven't learned a g d damn thing. Same with the causes of the depression, these draconian gop policies have never worked and they never will. We are again living through and witnessing the results of years of them, the slow burning coup. Even before citizens united all the way to their inserrection coup to stealing national security. Rinse wash repeat they're even going for the Reagan forcing the air traffic controllers back to work which didn't actually turn out the way they expected either. Leaving our sky's vulnerable to much more inexperienced controllers to say nothing about all the airline's that went out of business and workers that lost their jobs paving the way for the Carl Icons and all the other ponzi swindlers which lead to the next financial melt down/bail out recession. They even tried to pull the old oil cartel move as was done to Carter again out of their hat against Biden or clutching their inflation dumb nuts pearls.

I do not even consider them conservative in any way, shape or form. To conserve means to take care of and all they do is rape, steal & pillage, vulture capitalism at it's worst. The banality of evil for their greed & supposed power. Those rr ceo's should really stop and think if in the end it's really all worth it, try to learn the lessons of history ie Mussolini, depression era and many others of which in the long run it did well for those titans, captains of business, ceo's or whatever you want to call them either. These rr workers are fair and not even asking for that much in the first place. In many other countries this is/would be mandatory and a right. There are plenty of other good ceo's willing to step in, kick them out and take the transportation lead of which we are going to need to keep us competitive in the future. Our rail systems have been neglected for years also while they've been hording their cash & it shows, our rail isn't even high speed or comparible to Europe. I'm with the workers but the gop, ceo's that support them will use it again as their porn propaganda political narcissism to blab their mouths because they really have nothing else including a soul, conscious or ethics.

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Sep 15, 2022·edited Sep 15, 2022

I believe that no matter how rich a person is, in their minds they only need an additional 15 to 20% in their bank accounts to feel wealthy enough. That 15 to 20% target is always out there on the horizon somewhere. This applies whether a person is worth 5 million or 500 million. So they can never really have enough. Any new wage or health benefits to their employees represents an impediment to their ability to gain another 15 to 20% for themselves. Wage and benefit concessions to their employees are viewed by them as a slippery slope onto to which they never wish to slide. It’s all about greed.

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Railroad folks—>Go ahead and do what’s needed to get the attention that’s needed

Why you’ve put up with it this long… is beyond me?? like a really bad marriage… feels sooo good when ya finally give it up!!!

I’ll do without for ya for as long as it takes!!

Samm

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Somehow The White House has averted the strike. Someone is perhaps more effective than seems possible. We await the closing in of The DOJ, and the robotic domino-falling of the MAGA levels that have shocked the portion of population never to have been under the spell of the orange republican.

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founding

As a country, we just simply have to affirm a basic concept: we're all in this together! and the better we take care of one another, the better things will be. End (or beginning) of story.

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Pure greed and I got mine so tough. If you take care of your workers they will take care of you. Stable work schedules and xsick leave are not too much to ask for

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As of 5:00 this morning, it was announced that a tentative agreement was reached between the freight corporations and the union. No details were forthcoming (what they always say at this point) but things seem hopeful. If the strike is avoided, the issue is still present. Corporate owners all over the country, and world believe they have bought and paid for their workers so can demand anything of them. Unions have some influence, but there is a kind of acknowledgement that if one has a particular job, one must submit to the whims of those who have no clue what the job entails, with the implied threat that one can/will be fired/laid off if one does not fully comply. I get it that conservatives/Republicans hate strikes, unions, and the fight for rights in the workplace (like pregnant women being treated with respect), but they never actually examine why they are often so miserable on the job and off. They are angry, so blame Democrats or whoever might be within their scope. I suspect they know that if they looked at what is really happening in their lives, they might have to blame the corporations and business owners who are the cause. They don't want to do that because they, at least some, will see that their job is draining their life force and if they want a change, they will need to do something different. That is nearly as scary for them as immigrants invading and taking the job that is destroying them. They probably know deep down that salary is only part of the problem, but they often overlook workplace conditions, lack of sick pay or any paid leave at all. Then there are the hours and commuting costs and time. So many conservatives/Republicans scorn unions while they toil away without the benefits unions can bring to a workplace. Maybe what Democrats need to do is, a bit stronger than subtle, tell people to look at their job: how does it make you feel? Do you have friends/co-workers with whom you feel comfortable and feel they are not spying on you? Do you feel safe from harassment? Do you feel respected? Does your boss listen to you and can you make suggestions? How much overtime do you have to work and are you paid for it? Do you get a warning of overtime or is it just assumed you will do it?

Unions can help with these questions and can help make your workplace safer and more compatible. Unfortunately, unions can't help you determine whether you can grow on the job, but they can help if there is racism, sexism, and homophobia in hiring and promotion on the job. The inconvenience we have to put up with if there is a freight train strike is fair since those workers went over and beyond for us during COVID and since. They deserve better working conditions and to know they are people doing a job they are trained to do, but who have a life beyond the workplace. Those workers need to be respected. They are not just machines that produce profits for the mostly rich white male owners who could do none of their jobs well.

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