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?
There seems to be little business ethics currently. The climate of corporations having to make money on the backs of their employees stems most recently from Donald Trump and his lack of ethics. Lies, alliances with big business at the expense of the American worker is what we now see. This country is going to implode, by it's own greed, if the republicans gain control .
While the trumpsters have a lot of the blame, this certainly did not originate with them. The worst union buster in recent years was good ol' boy Ronnie Reagan and he only built on what had already started at least in the '70's. Sometimes I think the worst American mythology was the Horatio Alger crap, if you worked hard enough and were morally 'good' you too, could become a millionaire. It was fairy tale time then and it still is.
Oh Fay, you are so right. And, there was the "Power of Positive Thinking" that led men to believe that all they had to do was think positively and things would work out. Of course that didn't work for most people. Some of them tried to set up unions and did. Others lost hope and took crappy jobs where they were essentially paid slaves. Their lives were not great, so they had to blame someone because the positivity didn't work for them. The Democrats were nearly always seen as the enemy by those people because they championed unions and conservatives told workers that unions were bad because of the shenanigans of the Teamsters and some other high-powered unions. What they always neglected to tell those pathetic workers was that the unionized workers had a far better standard of living than they did. Couldn't have that. When our government started sending jobs overseas to gain higher profits for the very rich, people found they had to settle for whatever the rich owners offered. Even unions were undermined. Reagan really got that all started and it just snowballed after that. COVID taught us just how destructive the overseasing was. We need to do better now. We need a good way to get the message out to "real America" (Palin's words) to let them see things could be better for them and it wasn't Democrats who put them in the conditions they hate.
We still have the likes of Joel Osteen under the guise of Christianity pushing the Horatio Alger story, and Norman Vincent Peale’s Power of Positive Thinking mythology. Religion is the hook, the promise of prosperity the bait, and the the compliant flock the fish. The Christian right would like nothing better than to change our representative democracy into a Christian Democracy. Spoiler: Don’t be fooled by the word democracy in that title, it’s another way of saying authoritarian fascism.
Here in Seattle where I live, I've seen signs on public bus transportation that said: "Jesus is __________" (fill in the blank). Well I filled in the blank with
"Jesus is Dead - Get over it/him".. Another phrase I've heard is: 'Just ask and the Universe will provide'. Wha ? The universe couldn't care less about us little puny humans on some very remote (even within this galaxy) world and
Too many people who identify as Christian (and I say "identify as" deliberately) forget that the person they claim to follow was executed as a criminal threat to the powers that were. It's simply bewildering that so much of christendom believes they are to support the rich and powerful while blaming the poor and helpless. The document they claim to follow has the exact opposite as an agenda. C.S. Lewis put it well when he said Christians are to be like partisans operating behind enemy lines.
Enough of the religious stuff from me - I guess I wanted to point out that what people think of christendom is often based on what confused "Christians" broadcast to the world. Christians aren’t those who support the rich and powerful; they worship someone who was executed as a criminal and an enemy of the state.
Well said John! The Christian Nationalist movement is a threat to all who cherish our Constitutional Republic. They are supported by Opus Dei, a secret Catholic org. with an extreme orthodox belief system. Participants like Barr, who is a member of the Federalist society and a member of Opus Dei, swear their allegiance to Leonard Leo, instrumental in helping tRump appoint three of the new SC justices, Barrett, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch, appointed 234 conservative judges, 4 of them federal judges. If you control the DOJ, you can do anything you want and he did!
In regard to your ref to 'dear ol' Ronnie Reagan' and his (time frame) of the 'trickle
down' theory (what really was that ?) ~ I've long since come to refer that - phrase-
to be, in reality - "Hoovering Up" meaning vacuuming upward - to the wealthy top levels of society - any and all the profits produced that they can suck up for themselves and to hell with the REAL people that helped produce that wealth for profits ~ ~ ~
Faye, it started way before Ronnie. The IWW was was smashed a hundred years ago when it was working to protect miners. I think it’s time as you suggest to shift the notion of success to something other than raking in money. It was interesting for me to visit Switzerland and see a giant spa built and donated by several corporations. For twenty euros you can spend about four hours in various baths, pools, and lounges swimming, napping and relaxing. It would cost hundreds of dollars here and I have never even heard of such a spa.(Sole Uno). I do know everything about that situation I just noticed a plaque with the information that it was built by these corporations for the people.
In the US, to succeed in corporate hierarchy, apparently one must learn to sit up and beg, bark the right answers to one's managers and wag one's tail around the "right people"...and, oh yeah, have a cash register for a heart and a mercenary soul.
Concern for the community, caring for the welfare of one's employees and ethics in general have flown out the window in the chase for profit and yet more profit.
Linda you are right about the imploding, but this process has been going on for a long time. It got wound-up to a high pitch under Reagan but found its golden boy in Trump who has no clue, so will blurt out whatever he hears that he thinks will give him more cheers and more votes. At the same time that blurted nonsense puts down unions and promotes the rich guys who donated money to him and his cronies. Hopefully, the threat of a freight strike might get people to actually look at the conditions the workers faced every day, and maybe look at their own jobs to see how they have been used and abused. One can hope!
This mindset of greed started in the Regan administration & has only gotten worse every year, every decade. We, as a nation have unknowingly voted ourselves into indentured serfdom. And the only way back out is the same way we came in: VOTE! But vote for the people who will actually bring change to support the 99%, not the 1%. And republicans & that 1% will kick & scream & try to convince us that these steps will ruin our country, ruin our Democracy. DON’T BELIEVE THEM! They are looking out for the wealth & power they have gradually stolen from us. VOTE BLUE IN EVERY ELECTION. It’s the only path out of here. And it will be painful & messy but in the end it will get things done & get the 90% back in sharing the wealth & power of what, up until the last 6yrs (or 40yrs), has been that shining star on the hill.
Well said, Kathy, that is the only rational way out of this mess. The only other options are splitting the Nation into smaller regional countries (fat chance of that) or civil war, and that certainly didn't work out the last time. Although the South lost, they proclaimed themselves winners and have been pushing the country to the feudal days ever since.
I think it started back in the Gilded Age--late 1800's to early 1900's. The Age of the Robber Barons. Those men made fortunes on the backs of the workers and the feeling that it is their RIGHT to exploit and abuse has never fully been expunged. They hated Teddy Roosevelt for breaking their monopolies and they hated Franklin Delano Roosevelt even more for his "New Deal", implementing Social Security and other social safety net programs. That same mindset has never left some of the richest men in this country and they have been working hard to undermine all that FDR did.
That would be "fray" and no, of course, good and bad politicians are distributed amongst all parties. I will say that the Repubbies are willfully--happily, even-- participating in the destruction of their own party by not saying "NO" to the orange Voldemort.
Workers should be gaining in power with the reduced unemployment & greater demand for employees. The wealth & power have been so skewed unnaturally toward the owners & against employees.
My daughter took a class in business ethics as a freshman.
She dropped it after one week when her business major classmates did not believe in ethics only profits.Nothing wrong with profit but let’s be aware of how companies make profit - on the back of people
Chuck, yep, profits without ethics is a bad combination for everyone involved, except, maybe the rich owners who got there without ethics but think it was god's will, and that it means they can do whatever they want with impunity.
God has nothing to do with their “gospel prosperity” pulpit propaganda. I well remember the media/religious canonization of their saint/prophet Reagan’s union busting, anti healthy public school lunches, (cost cutting at the expense of the poor) and by the way, who the working poor voted for in droves. I remember speaker Tip O’Neil stating that he knew the Democratic Party was in trouble when a maid in a hotel tongue lashed him for being too hard on that nice Mr. Reagan! The rural airwaves are and, have been saturated with political lies and anti democracy crap for many years. The truth is the right wing Republican, corporate power brokers have been dismantling democracy for forty plus years. They have been systematically erasing history, women’s rights, the right to unionize for better working conditions and, better pay, voting rights, ANY RIGHTS that conflict with their bottom line: DOLLARS and POWER. Women had better vote in droves to overcome the legalized criminality against democracy through gerrymandering, voter rights slashing, citizens united, filibuster, etc. etc. OR we’ll all wake up to the erasure of the 19th. Amendment that we have had a short 102 years. Remember, history tells us everything we need to know about voting today.
The failure of the US's "capitalism" is that it is no longer capitalism but monopoly capital. There is nothing wrong with corporate greed and the profit motive if it is contained by 1) competition 2) moral behavior. It is the loss of competition that frees the captains of industry be immoral.
Rishi, Oh, that's where they got it@ "Atlas Shrugged." I couldn't get past the 2nd chapter in that one, so I missed the instruction book part that taught white men how to be appalling employers/human beings. Maybe that is the book that should be banned! Well, maybe it should just have a warning label that it can turn the reader into someone they might not like very much.
Archana, it seems to me that business leaders have learned somewhere (possibly in business schools) that if everyone prospers, they won't attain the fortune they believe they are born to. We have encouraged more and more wealth to be consolidated at the top and they, with their wealth can buy legislators, judges, governors, and even the President of the United States and do. When the "representatives of the people" care nothing or next to nothing what the people need or want it is not healthy and our economy suffers. The rich guys now are planning to raise interest rates, supposedly to slow inflation when a lot of the inflation is caused by those same rich guys raising prices to gain even more profits. Who will suffer when it costs more to borrow money, not the rich. Again, it will be working-class people and small businesses as well as farmers who will suffer most, as usual. In such a scenario, there is no place for shared prosperity or even prosperity for anyone but those men who feel they are entitled to whatever they want. God gave it to them, right?
I understand how they can do it. If they ignore the needs of workers and make more money as a result they can pay themselves enormous salaries and bonuses. That is exactly why we need a return to the 90% tax bracket for salaries over say $10M. When we had the 90% max tax bracket CEO's never pulled all of the cash out of their company. They would be taxed if they took it out. Instead they left it in the company and invested in better wages and working conditions and innovation and as a result the country had much much higher productivity gains back then.
We can easily fix this. 90% tax on any wages over $10M
Dems need to win the House and the Senate to accomplish this, and most unfortunately, some Dems won't go along with it. Sorry to burst everyone's bubble...
You are not bursting anyones bubble. The reality is that Democratic leadership knew what Senators like Manchin and Sinema were like when they were running in the primaries. They chose to support these Republican Democrats. They should have used the parties resources against these Republican Democrats the same way they did to ensure Sanders did not win the primaries against Clinton and Biden.
The party CHOSE not to deal with these two the way they dealt with Bernie. That was not a mistake it was intentional.
They use these to as their excuse for doing what the donor class wants and not what voters want.
I can't stand Trump but once he took office he crushed Republicans that did not support HIS agenda. And now going into primaires he is doing the same. That is how you get a party to take action. Sadly the action Trump wants to take is horrible for everyone but his process is THE process for taking over a party.
Manchin and Sinema face no pressure what so ever for voting like Republicans. NONE from the party. As i said, it is not a mistake those two won. The Dems don't want to do anything progressive that would upset their donors.
Vote against the Democratic incumbent in the primary 100% of time. It is the fastest way of getting the corporate democrats out of the party and opening it to progressives.
They'll come together when they overthrow the oligarchs. Look, corporations are miserable at this point in time. They have NO incentive to embrace 'mutual prosperity,' and most certainly do not do so, except a rare few who have always existed on the margins (such as Yvon Choinard's Patagonia). It this strikes you as 'sad' I have to wonder what you've been watching for 40 years as corporations have steadily immiserated 99% of the population. 'Outrageous and grotesquely abusive' only barely begin to describe the conditions of American labor at present.
It doesn't look like the unions got much at all in this 'deal.' The forced scheduling is nothing less than feudal indenture. Giving them more $$ does nothing to resolve the fundamental problem of gross labor exploitation. _ONE_ paid sick day? That isn't even a concession: that's an insult. A rail shutdown would be hard on the country and bad for the Democrats, but I'd support it in an instant. Those working conditions are inhuman and something which should not be possible in a democrac---- oh wait. I almost managed to forget we live in a semi-fascistic oligarchic republic with all of one party, 60% of the other bought by the bosses, and any other political view excluded by the media and the structure of the electoral system. And it IS hard to face down the bosses when a demented MAGAt horde is trying to stab one in the back with a pitchfork all the while.
I can't say that a labor uprising is coming, or if so just when. I can say that present conditions cannot continue, so they will not. NOBODY wants to work for the parasitic ogres which run the world's corporations, but the will to overthrow them hasn't come together even though structurally they are comparatively weak. We are still all looking to buy out or drop out individually; that I can personally attest. Collectively changing the terms would be preferable, but we're not there yet. This 'deal' does nothing to get us there, either.
Keep preaching. You are so spot on. It is absolutely the working conditions at the railways, at places like Walmart and Amazon and pretty much for all "essential" workers.
40yrs of flat wages while the top 1% saw their wages grow 5X faster than in history. Hell yes the wages matter too. But with the railroad workers it was really about the working conditions. It was the same at Amazon.
It's not just flat wages. (And they are not flat, as actual inflations has actually led to a real-value _decline_ in compensation for much of the work force.) The on-call scheduling which is effectively mandatory in many industries where it was never utilized before such as retail and restaurant labor; the at-will contracts many are forced to sign at hire, effectively giving away any labor rights; the forced arbitration many are compelled to sign on for as a condition of hire, which when you read the fine print means that you are shut out of the legal system entirely for a boss-run kangaroo court: these and other features have gutted the labor rights for most in this country who are not in an actual union, with unions being outsourced at a ruthless pace (as my former jot was years back). The Federal government has stood by idly and let all this happen, under Democratic Administrations just as much _AND MORE_ than under Repugnicant ones. What little labor law there was the corrupt SCOTUS has hacked away at at the margins. What we are watching with Starbucks for example is breathtaking in its illegality: it is directly against Federal law to fire union organizers in retaliation. And where is the US Labor Department on that? Waiting _for the workers to sue_, while the power of the Executive Branch sits with it's feed up and that machine zero from Boston at its head can't even get himself in front of a camera to mention the extreme abuses.
It's not just the economy that is sick in this country: it is the minds of those who run corporate enterprise. The treachery and hostility toward the 'lesser sort' of workers is endemic and ingrained in the management class of this country---and "You're fired" if you don't play along at the middle level. It's no wonder that those under thirty overtly prefer the idea of socialism to the predatory capitalism which is all they have ever known.
Both are based in Seattle, where I live, and receive extensive coverage here. But I'd follow the labor organization involved regardless. Schultz took the reins back at Starbucks specifically to try to break the unionization wave, and firing organizers is his direct initiative, don't doubt it. He just resigned because, as one sees, that initiative hasn't gone well for him. A real, despicable, human being, with a resume as such kilometers long going back decades.
Let me ask you this. I have just recently taken a keen interest in growing union strength in the US... Have followed the teachers in Oaklahoma and LA, The Amazon workers in NY and Bessemer and of course the Kellog workers. I also contribute when i can.
My question is this, how long have these unions been turning the tide on declining union member ship. Is this a recent thing, last year or two or does it go back farther than that?
What?? You are suggesting we put workers basic needs over the "job creators"? How dare you!! Remember that other horrific human being, Reagan, and the air traffic controllers. Bernie has already said he will vote "NO!" to the railroad executives request for government involvement to "protect their profits". Will working Americans stand up for their own benefit, or just go along because they want their new car delivered "on time". When there is not solidarity, there is division. And that is what the greedy, "never enough profit for me" (40% margin and growing??), executives count on.
You are spot on. The way they keep us divided is by funding media that talks endlessly about Woke this and Woke that or the Mueller investigation or Jan 6th. Not saying these are not important issues. Just saying that if the media hired the number of "experts" they had for the Mueller investigation to instead constantly discuss FLAT wages for the middle class, Medicare for All and Monopolies then their ratings would be better and the donor class would be facing a united group of voters.
It is no accident that the Media like CNN., Fox, WaPo, Ben Shapiro etc. get paid by the very companies that do not want the media talking about anything in depth other than identity politics and Palace Intrigue
Solution, vote in every single primary and vote AGAINST the incumbent 100% of the time. That is how voters beat the corporations.
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.
“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.
This could highlight the unfairness of this railroad in this case, and may inspire voters to vote against "business friendly" Repubs. If there is a strike it will be informative to see how various media cover it.
Laurie, you are right to be interested in the way the media will cover a strike if it happens. I have noticed over time that media in general side with the corporations "gotta keep things moving, you know." They interview a worker or two but emphasize just how much trouble those workers will be causing even if they don't say it out loud. Maybe we need a little chaos on behalf of those men and women who kept those trains rolling under horrific conditions during a pandemic, who want a life, some considerations, and above all, respect!
Maybe. It depends on how the story is publicized (explaining in detail the grievances, citing instances where people have been penalized for being out with Covid or a heart attack), and if democrats publicly show their allegiance to the working class. It won’t pull the trumpist’s heads out of their butts, but maybe some swing voters will wake up
So much depends on how the media portrays a strike. I’ve seen too many stories suggesting the striking workers are spoiled children, when the reverse is true: it’s management that wants something for nothing.
Agreed. And in this day of corporate run media, you’ll rarely see the issue from the perspective of the working class. Chris Hayes or Rachel Maddow are the two exceptions where the story might get our perspective shared.
There area, apparently, humane corporations in our very own country. The gesture by Patagonia should be cause to celebrate. The owner is giving all profits to climate solutions. Wow. I’ll buy Patagonia! Winter is on its way.
Alas, Christopher, sometimes it takes some economic chaos to move to a different, hopefully better place. Workers have nearly always been the losers when a crisis happens because the rich have the money to plead their "poor me" case and to get legislators to buy it. The ones who keep things going and bring in the profits are the ones screwed and we the people allow it. I think we all bought the BS on that one. It is time we all wake up and see that it is no accident that we have super billionaires who care for no one but themselves and the power they can wield. They need to be either curbed or set aside to let them play in their own world. Remove their influence on businesses and politics. That would be ideal, but I just don't think enough Americans would go for it. "We" love our rich people for some reason. It makes no sense, but it is real.
I think his comment was made hours ago before news of a 'tentative' agreement is in the works. I don't think Foxx's statement was totally untrue. Democrats are blamed for everything, even things that are nonexistent and often things that were actually done by Republicans, like Powell with his interest raising 'solution'.
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.
It’s not an all or nothing proposition, Greg. It’s a “both, and…” one. How do we support every worker AND also strengthen democracy? I agree with you that we must have a more engaged and robust habit of participation in the political realm AND we must support better education practices, including the history of work and labor. Strengthening the warp and weft will, ultimately create a more rich and beautiful “tapestry of democracy.”
Greg, you are right about the importance of the legislatures and the vote. We need to mobilize as many people as we can for this November. I hope we can do it on behalf of all the workers who deserve better.
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.
Ian, yes exploitation has been a huge part of American business, giving the credit to none of thepeople who actually made the "innovation" happen. Then we exported our techniques around the world. I hope we can fix that.
We didn't nationalize the industry but we do have Amtrak, a federally chartered corporation, with the federal government as majority stockholder. The Amtrak Board of Directors is appointed by the President of the United States and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Amtrak is operated as a for-profit company, rather than a public authority.
First ICC 1887.The Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 was designed to regulate the railroad industry, particularly its monopolistic practices. The Act required that railroad rates be "reasonable and just," but did not empower the government to fix specific rates.
When I was a kid, the wealthiest companies in the US were railroads -- NYC and Pennsy. E.G. Pennsy literally owned the most real estate and euphemistically the pa supreme court and legislature. After the decline of RRs due to the national highway system and attack by oil companies and car manufacturers, RRs were "deregulated" by the Staggers Act, 1980, Jimmy Carter.
Now. https://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/safetyfirst/federal-railroad-administration FRA regulates public and intercity rail services, but does not regulate "closed" railways that operate exclusively on private property, such as a rail system between buildings at a steel mill, nor does it regulate subways, light rail or elevated intra-city passenger rail systems that do not connect to any public rail.
My jurisdiction came through the whistleblower program. Federal Railroad Safety Act (FRSA)
"The North American rail transport system is characterized by a high level of geographical specialization, with large private rail carriers servicing large regional markets. The system is privately owned and operated, and each carrier has its facilities and thus its markets along the segments it controls. The rail system is the outcome of substantial capital investments occurring over several decades with the accumulation of impressive infrastructure and equipment assets. However, such a characteristic created issues about continuity within the North American rail network, particularly in the United States. Mergers have improved this continuity, but a limit has been reached in the network size of most rail operators.
Attempts have been made to synchronize the interactions between rail operators for long-distance trade with the setting of intermodal unit trains. Often bilateral, trilateral, or even quadrilateral arrangements are made between rail carriers and shipping companies to improve the intermodal interface at the major gateways or at points of interlining between major networks. Chicago is the largest interlining center in North America, handling around 10 million TEUs per year, a location at the junction of the Eastern, Western, and Canadian rail systems."
Yes, Laurie, they would outsource the railroads too. Then, of course they would want the profits, if there are any and do nothing to protect the workers and encourage the country to which they were outsourced to exploit their workers as much as possible in the name of progress (really profits). Oh wait, how would that work! Ha!
Derek, funny how that corporate greed just keeps poppping up and how little we the people have done to curb it. I think we need a major tough love intervention to stop their addiction to the greed for money and power they have. It is worse than heroine or any of the other illicit drugs and we the people have called it legal.
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.
Phillip, you are right about health care and big Ag in this country. I am not sure how to improve this situation because those who are most victimized by this situation, rural people, keep voting for representatives who don't care about their health or food, only the power being in the state legislatures or Congress gives them. How do we get those folks to see that something different could help them more? It has been said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome. Well, right now related to health care and agriculture, there is a lot of insanity.
for now work on mid term elections for candidates supporting sustainable care for all including environment and health issues. The Sierra Club and LCV (League of Conservation Voters) are helpful in this. For equitable sustainable health promotion see The National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine (NAS/ NASEM) report " Emerging from COVID-19: Priorities for Health System Transformation" , the PNHP (Physicians for a National Health Plan, and the American Public Health Association (APHA). https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/26657/chapter/11#475 , https://pnhp.org/
Insanity fails to help but much of the problem is a lack of balance between the accumulation of resources; and the use of resources for public and environmental benefits. The resource holders/ controllers may be too anxious to get more; and the exploited and contaminated are anxious for their existence. Anxiety may be a super power if controlled but when out of balance it may be toxic to ourselves and others.
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.
Mo 777 Jet This has me thinking about the 'inflation' we are experiencing here. The wealthy corps are enjoying the biggest profit margins in decades. Blame the workers. Raise interest rates to 'slow he economy'. Rubbish.
MO, I am so sorry to learn of your plight. I know it is the plight of many who thought their retirement would be manageable. Some people, the media, in particular are obsessed with wealthy people and they keep interviewing them as though they have anything to say, that they will say to the workers they have screwed. Until we get big donors out of politics, this problem will not stop. This morning when NPR was reporting on the possible agreement to prevent the rail strike, they only mentioned the pay increase. That was not even the main thing workers were asking for. They mentioned nothing about working conditions in the report. That is typical, so retirees like you will again feel the pain of loss because someone else gained. It is truly terrible reporting, but it works for the rich who want division in our nation, and they don't really care where it comes from as long as it gives them a "good" story of conflict that they can blame on Democrats and unions. How do we stop it? I don't know, but calling them out on it might get things rolling.
Thank you, Ruth. That's exactly right about money and sewing division. In my experience, one way the company benefited was to use pay issues to sew division among worker groups, ignoring safety and quality-of-life issues. They'd subtly turn lower-paid groups against higher-paid, when our common enemy was management. I don't know whether lower-paid groups genuinely believed that they'd be given raises if higher-paid worker compensation were cut or whether the problem was just hatred of anyone who has more, despite the requirement for more training and responsibility-taking. In addition to allowing the corporation to divide and conquer, that belief seems to foster the growing sentiment among younger workers that they deserve pay equal to that of experienced workers -- a mindset that has led to the kind of hate mail I saw from younger union reps wishing, in writing, that older workers would "drop dead." If it appears as though respect and manners have disappeared, as is often the case, I guess, follow the money. In any case, their divisive, money-emphasizing tactics helped them to achieve success, slashing pay in half, decimatung benefits, and terminating pensions. They did it with the public as well. When we went on strike for issues inuding safety and QOL, they led the public to believe pilots were just greedy. Today's pilots, apparently, learned from that as they're clearly emphasizing safety issues over pay. No one, however, seems to broadcast the size of CEO raises and bonus increases and the quality of their work in leading their company other than at the bottom line. If media cared at all about workers, they'd keep CEO compensation at the forefront of their reporting rather than making it invisible. And reporters ARE workers, but in addition to being pressured by their management, are they falling victim to the same divisive tactics that cost us so much? The other side of that division was to convince the higher-paid workers that they were really quasi-management members of the "good old boys" club, and (nudge, nudge) while the company may have to cut the compensation of lower-status workers, they'd surely never touch the pensions of their higher-paid buddies. Ha. So many believed that, even to the last moment. For sure, the many gullible aming those "buddies" were greatly surprised! Yet they still fall for that ego-incentive bs. They're still GOP voters, falling right into Trump's trap. They and they're egos learned nothing even from being lied-and-cheated out of millions in contractually obligated compensation, including their retirement-security pensions.
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!
Laurie, that could be a great idea to have the owners, those who are making the profits and huge salaries from the sweat of the freight workers to do the actual work of that railroad for a while. Unfortunately, there is no way they could do it without killing themselves or someone else because of their inability. It might make them a bit more appreciative of what the actual workers do. Nah! They are far past having empathy for anyone.
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.
See Mr. Solomon's comment below. He brings settled law to bear in the discussion, along with a thumbnail history. I'll bet Biden was bringing settled law to bear in the negotiations - not "Black Shirts." (Of course, the Tweet-publicans would have us believe that only Black Shirts enforce Federal law.)
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.
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.
I agree. This morning's announcement of the agreement caught me a bit off guard. If Biden managed to pull it of, >that< is a real accomplishment. Otherwise, he'd have faced the debacle I mention in yesterday's discussion. But let's not get all ecstatic yet. The word I hear is "tentative." To paraphrase the immortal words of James Thurber, "lets not count our boobies before they're hatched!"
ANNE D Young ; IF the DOJ can get its work done in time. I can't get my head around 'statutes of limitations' in a case as serious as Seditious attack on our Democracy and rule of law. The 'lawyer' pundits still talk about that threat to Justice.
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.
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
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.
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?
There seems to be little business ethics currently. The climate of corporations having to make money on the backs of their employees stems most recently from Donald Trump and his lack of ethics. Lies, alliances with big business at the expense of the American worker is what we now see. This country is going to implode, by it's own greed, if the republicans gain control .
While the trumpsters have a lot of the blame, this certainly did not originate with them. The worst union buster in recent years was good ol' boy Ronnie Reagan and he only built on what had already started at least in the '70's. Sometimes I think the worst American mythology was the Horatio Alger crap, if you worked hard enough and were morally 'good' you too, could become a millionaire. It was fairy tale time then and it still is.
Oh Fay, you are so right. And, there was the "Power of Positive Thinking" that led men to believe that all they had to do was think positively and things would work out. Of course that didn't work for most people. Some of them tried to set up unions and did. Others lost hope and took crappy jobs where they were essentially paid slaves. Their lives were not great, so they had to blame someone because the positivity didn't work for them. The Democrats were nearly always seen as the enemy by those people because they championed unions and conservatives told workers that unions were bad because of the shenanigans of the Teamsters and some other high-powered unions. What they always neglected to tell those pathetic workers was that the unionized workers had a far better standard of living than they did. Couldn't have that. When our government started sending jobs overseas to gain higher profits for the very rich, people found they had to settle for whatever the rich owners offered. Even unions were undermined. Reagan really got that all started and it just snowballed after that. COVID taught us just how destructive the overseasing was. We need to do better now. We need a good way to get the message out to "real America" (Palin's words) to let them see things could be better for them and it wasn't Democrats who put them in the conditions they hate.
We still have the likes of Joel Osteen under the guise of Christianity pushing the Horatio Alger story, and Norman Vincent Peale’s Power of Positive Thinking mythology. Religion is the hook, the promise of prosperity the bait, and the the compliant flock the fish. The Christian right would like nothing better than to change our representative democracy into a Christian Democracy. Spoiler: Don’t be fooled by the word democracy in that title, it’s another way of saying authoritarian fascism.
Here in Seattle where I live, I've seen signs on public bus transportation that said: "Jesus is __________" (fill in the blank). Well I filled in the blank with
"Jesus is Dead - Get over it/him".. Another phrase I've heard is: 'Just ask and the Universe will provide'. Wha ? The universe couldn't care less about us little puny humans on some very remote (even within this galaxy) world and
'the troubles we've seen'....
Too many people who identify as Christian (and I say "identify as" deliberately) forget that the person they claim to follow was executed as a criminal threat to the powers that were. It's simply bewildering that so much of christendom believes they are to support the rich and powerful while blaming the poor and helpless. The document they claim to follow has the exact opposite as an agenda. C.S. Lewis put it well when he said Christians are to be like partisans operating behind enemy lines.
Enough of the religious stuff from me - I guess I wanted to point out that what people think of christendom is often based on what confused "Christians" broadcast to the world. Christians aren’t those who support the rich and powerful; they worship someone who was executed as a criminal and an enemy of the state.
Edited for clarity. 🤓
Christianity can and does give anyone wanting to accept the doctrine something to believe in. The ambiguity is staggering.
Well said John! The Christian Nationalist movement is a threat to all who cherish our Constitutional Republic. They are supported by Opus Dei, a secret Catholic org. with an extreme orthodox belief system. Participants like Barr, who is a member of the Federalist society and a member of Opus Dei, swear their allegiance to Leonard Leo, instrumental in helping tRump appoint three of the new SC justices, Barrett, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch, appointed 234 conservative judges, 4 of them federal judges. If you control the DOJ, you can do anything you want and he did!
In regard to your ref to 'dear ol' Ronnie Reagan' and his (time frame) of the 'trickle
down' theory (what really was that ?) ~ I've long since come to refer that - phrase-
to be, in reality - "Hoovering Up" meaning vacuuming upward - to the wealthy top levels of society - any and all the profits produced that they can suck up for themselves and to hell with the REAL people that helped produce that wealth for profits ~ ~ ~
Yes! AGREE!!!
Agree!
Faye, it started way before Ronnie. The IWW was was smashed a hundred years ago when it was working to protect miners. I think it’s time as you suggest to shift the notion of success to something other than raking in money. It was interesting for me to visit Switzerland and see a giant spa built and donated by several corporations. For twenty euros you can spend about four hours in various baths, pools, and lounges swimming, napping and relaxing. It would cost hundreds of dollars here and I have never even heard of such a spa.(Sole Uno). I do know everything about that situation I just noticed a plaque with the information that it was built by these corporations for the people.
In the US, to succeed in corporate hierarchy, apparently one must learn to sit up and beg, bark the right answers to one's managers and wag one's tail around the "right people"...and, oh yeah, have a cash register for a heart and a mercenary soul.
Concern for the community, caring for the welfare of one's employees and ethics in general have flown out the window in the chase for profit and yet more profit.
Agree!
Linda: There is no such thing as business ethics. Or if there is it is only window dressing. Dollars, dollars, dollars. That is all they see.
Business ethics. An oxymoron.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
Linda you are right about the imploding, but this process has been going on for a long time. It got wound-up to a high pitch under Reagan but found its golden boy in Trump who has no clue, so will blurt out whatever he hears that he thinks will give him more cheers and more votes. At the same time that blurted nonsense puts down unions and promotes the rich guys who donated money to him and his cronies. Hopefully, the threat of a freight strike might get people to actually look at the conditions the workers faced every day, and maybe look at their own jobs to see how they have been used and abused. One can hope!
This mindset of greed started in the Regan administration & has only gotten worse every year, every decade. We, as a nation have unknowingly voted ourselves into indentured serfdom. And the only way back out is the same way we came in: VOTE! But vote for the people who will actually bring change to support the 99%, not the 1%. And republicans & that 1% will kick & scream & try to convince us that these steps will ruin our country, ruin our Democracy. DON’T BELIEVE THEM! They are looking out for the wealth & power they have gradually stolen from us. VOTE BLUE IN EVERY ELECTION. It’s the only path out of here. And it will be painful & messy but in the end it will get things done & get the 90% back in sharing the wealth & power of what, up until the last 6yrs (or 40yrs), has been that shining star on the hill.
Well said, Kathy, that is the only rational way out of this mess. The only other options are splitting the Nation into smaller regional countries (fat chance of that) or civil war, and that certainly didn't work out the last time. Although the South lost, they proclaimed themselves winners and have been pushing the country to the feudal days ever since.
I think it started back in the Gilded Age--late 1800's to early 1900's. The Age of the Robber Barons. Those men made fortunes on the backs of the workers and the feeling that it is their RIGHT to exploit and abuse has never fully been expunged. They hated Teddy Roosevelt for breaking their monopolies and they hated Franklin Delano Roosevelt even more for his "New Deal", implementing Social Security and other social safety net programs. That same mindset has never left some of the richest men in this country and they have been working hard to undermine all that FDR did.
I keep trying to "heart" you, but after over 3 minutes of trying, I've given up. Sorry!
That would be "fray" and no, of course, good and bad politicians are distributed amongst all parties. I will say that the Repubbies are willfully--happily, even-- participating in the destruction of their own party by not saying "NO" to the orange Voldemort.
Workers should be gaining in power with the reduced unemployment & greater demand for employees. The wealth & power have been so skewed unnaturally toward the owners & against employees.
My daughter took a class in business ethics as a freshman.
She dropped it after one week when her business major classmates did not believe in ethics only profits.Nothing wrong with profit but let’s be aware of how companies make profit - on the back of people
Chuck, yep, profits without ethics is a bad combination for everyone involved, except, maybe the rich owners who got there without ethics but think it was god's will, and that it means they can do whatever they want with impunity.
God has nothing to do with their “gospel prosperity” pulpit propaganda. I well remember the media/religious canonization of their saint/prophet Reagan’s union busting, anti healthy public school lunches, (cost cutting at the expense of the poor) and by the way, who the working poor voted for in droves. I remember speaker Tip O’Neil stating that he knew the Democratic Party was in trouble when a maid in a hotel tongue lashed him for being too hard on that nice Mr. Reagan! The rural airwaves are and, have been saturated with political lies and anti democracy crap for many years. The truth is the right wing Republican, corporate power brokers have been dismantling democracy for forty plus years. They have been systematically erasing history, women’s rights, the right to unionize for better working conditions and, better pay, voting rights, ANY RIGHTS that conflict with their bottom line: DOLLARS and POWER. Women had better vote in droves to overcome the legalized criminality against democracy through gerrymandering, voter rights slashing, citizens united, filibuster, etc. etc. OR we’ll all wake up to the erasure of the 19th. Amendment that we have had a short 102 years. Remember, history tells us everything we need to know about voting today.
What hath God wrought? - Alexander Graham Bell to Thomas Watson.
The failure of the US's "capitalism" is that it is no longer capitalism but monopoly capital. There is nothing wrong with corporate greed and the profit motive if it is contained by 1) competition 2) moral behavior. It is the loss of competition that frees the captains of industry be immoral.
Good for your daughter!
Umm... it's... literally the plot of an Ayn Rand novel ('Atlas Shrugged')?
Rishi, Oh, that's where they got it@ "Atlas Shrugged." I couldn't get past the 2nd chapter in that one, so I missed the instruction book part that taught white men how to be appalling employers/human beings. Maybe that is the book that should be banned! Well, maybe it should just have a warning label that it can turn the reader into someone they might not like very much.
Maybe you should have read the rest of the book. Where did it ever say anything about race?
John Galt would approve of this message.
Janet, sorry to correct your spelling, but it’s a detailed “destruction” manual. Best regards!
Archana, it seems to me that business leaders have learned somewhere (possibly in business schools) that if everyone prospers, they won't attain the fortune they believe they are born to. We have encouraged more and more wealth to be consolidated at the top and they, with their wealth can buy legislators, judges, governors, and even the President of the United States and do. When the "representatives of the people" care nothing or next to nothing what the people need or want it is not healthy and our economy suffers. The rich guys now are planning to raise interest rates, supposedly to slow inflation when a lot of the inflation is caused by those same rich guys raising prices to gain even more profits. Who will suffer when it costs more to borrow money, not the rich. Again, it will be working-class people and small businesses as well as farmers who will suffer most, as usual. In such a scenario, there is no place for shared prosperity or even prosperity for anyone but those men who feel they are entitled to whatever they want. God gave it to them, right?
We need Teddy Roosevelt now!
We need BOTH Roosevelts! Teddy AND Franklin!
Hell yeah!!! I know we do, and I thought Andrew Cuomo was going to be our FDR. What a disappointment he was.
I understand how they can do it. If they ignore the needs of workers and make more money as a result they can pay themselves enormous salaries and bonuses. That is exactly why we need a return to the 90% tax bracket for salaries over say $10M. When we had the 90% max tax bracket CEO's never pulled all of the cash out of their company. They would be taxed if they took it out. Instead they left it in the company and invested in better wages and working conditions and innovation and as a result the country had much much higher productivity gains back then.
We can easily fix this. 90% tax on any wages over $10M
Right you are, and yes "they" can do it. It's a capitalist system.
Dems need to win the House and the Senate to accomplish this, and most unfortunately, some Dems won't go along with it. Sorry to burst everyone's bubble...
Lenore
You are not bursting anyones bubble. The reality is that Democratic leadership knew what Senators like Manchin and Sinema were like when they were running in the primaries. They chose to support these Republican Democrats. They should have used the parties resources against these Republican Democrats the same way they did to ensure Sanders did not win the primaries against Clinton and Biden.
The party CHOSE not to deal with these two the way they dealt with Bernie. That was not a mistake it was intentional.
They use these to as their excuse for doing what the donor class wants and not what voters want.
I can't stand Trump but once he took office he crushed Republicans that did not support HIS agenda. And now going into primaires he is doing the same. That is how you get a party to take action. Sadly the action Trump wants to take is horrible for everyone but his process is THE process for taking over a party.
Manchin and Sinema face no pressure what so ever for voting like Republicans. NONE from the party. As i said, it is not a mistake those two won. The Dems don't want to do anything progressive that would upset their donors.
Vote against the Democratic incumbent in the primary 100% of time. It is the fastest way of getting the corporate democrats out of the party and opening it to progressives.
They'll come together when they overthrow the oligarchs. Look, corporations are miserable at this point in time. They have NO incentive to embrace 'mutual prosperity,' and most certainly do not do so, except a rare few who have always existed on the margins (such as Yvon Choinard's Patagonia). It this strikes you as 'sad' I have to wonder what you've been watching for 40 years as corporations have steadily immiserated 99% of the population. 'Outrageous and grotesquely abusive' only barely begin to describe the conditions of American labor at present.
It doesn't look like the unions got much at all in this 'deal.' The forced scheduling is nothing less than feudal indenture. Giving them more $$ does nothing to resolve the fundamental problem of gross labor exploitation. _ONE_ paid sick day? That isn't even a concession: that's an insult. A rail shutdown would be hard on the country and bad for the Democrats, but I'd support it in an instant. Those working conditions are inhuman and something which should not be possible in a democrac---- oh wait. I almost managed to forget we live in a semi-fascistic oligarchic republic with all of one party, 60% of the other bought by the bosses, and any other political view excluded by the media and the structure of the electoral system. And it IS hard to face down the bosses when a demented MAGAt horde is trying to stab one in the back with a pitchfork all the while.
I can't say that a labor uprising is coming, or if so just when. I can say that present conditions cannot continue, so they will not. NOBODY wants to work for the parasitic ogres which run the world's corporations, but the will to overthrow them hasn't come together even though structurally they are comparatively weak. We are still all looking to buy out or drop out individually; that I can personally attest. Collectively changing the terms would be preferable, but we're not there yet. This 'deal' does nothing to get us there, either.
RKein
Keep preaching. You are so spot on. It is absolutely the working conditions at the railways, at places like Walmart and Amazon and pretty much for all "essential" workers.
40yrs of flat wages while the top 1% saw their wages grow 5X faster than in history. Hell yes the wages matter too. But with the railroad workers it was really about the working conditions. It was the same at Amazon.
It's not just flat wages. (And they are not flat, as actual inflations has actually led to a real-value _decline_ in compensation for much of the work force.) The on-call scheduling which is effectively mandatory in many industries where it was never utilized before such as retail and restaurant labor; the at-will contracts many are forced to sign at hire, effectively giving away any labor rights; the forced arbitration many are compelled to sign on for as a condition of hire, which when you read the fine print means that you are shut out of the legal system entirely for a boss-run kangaroo court: these and other features have gutted the labor rights for most in this country who are not in an actual union, with unions being outsourced at a ruthless pace (as my former jot was years back). The Federal government has stood by idly and let all this happen, under Democratic Administrations just as much _AND MORE_ than under Repugnicant ones. What little labor law there was the corrupt SCOTUS has hacked away at at the margins. What we are watching with Starbucks for example is breathtaking in its illegality: it is directly against Federal law to fire union organizers in retaliation. And where is the US Labor Department on that? Waiting _for the workers to sue_, while the power of the Executive Branch sits with it's feed up and that machine zero from Boston at its head can't even get himself in front of a camera to mention the extreme abuses.
It's not just the economy that is sick in this country: it is the minds of those who run corporate enterprise. The treachery and hostility toward the 'lesser sort' of workers is endemic and ingrained in the management class of this country---and "You're fired" if you don't play along at the middle level. It's no wonder that those under thirty overtly prefer the idea of socialism to the predatory capitalism which is all they have ever known.
RK
Your knowledge on this really important subject is impressive. I had heard that Amazon was firing Union leaders, Starbucks too?
You are spot on. This ends of Biden starts talking about day after day. And if he ignores it then you know where he really stands.
The Railroad workers had some very legitimate working conditions gripes. I hope the rhetoric of the settlement is matched by the actual contract.
Great reading your in depth knowledge of this
Both are based in Seattle, where I live, and receive extensive coverage here. But I'd follow the labor organization involved regardless. Schultz took the reins back at Starbucks specifically to try to break the unionization wave, and firing organizers is his direct initiative, don't doubt it. He just resigned because, as one sees, that initiative hasn't gone well for him. A real, despicable, human being, with a resume as such kilometers long going back decades.
RK
Let me ask you this. I have just recently taken a keen interest in growing union strength in the US... Have followed the teachers in Oaklahoma and LA, The Amazon workers in NY and Bessemer and of course the Kellog workers. I also contribute when i can.
My question is this, how long have these unions been turning the tide on declining union member ship. Is this a recent thing, last year or two or does it go back farther than that?
What?? You are suggesting we put workers basic needs over the "job creators"? How dare you!! Remember that other horrific human being, Reagan, and the air traffic controllers. Bernie has already said he will vote "NO!" to the railroad executives request for government involvement to "protect their profits". Will working Americans stand up for their own benefit, or just go along because they want their new car delivered "on time". When there is not solidarity, there is division. And that is what the greedy, "never enough profit for me" (40% margin and growing??), executives count on.
Remedes
You are spot on. The way they keep us divided is by funding media that talks endlessly about Woke this and Woke that or the Mueller investigation or Jan 6th. Not saying these are not important issues. Just saying that if the media hired the number of "experts" they had for the Mueller investigation to instead constantly discuss FLAT wages for the middle class, Medicare for All and Monopolies then their ratings would be better and the donor class would be facing a united group of voters.
It is no accident that the Media like CNN., Fox, WaPo, Ben Shapiro etc. get paid by the very companies that do not want the media talking about anything in depth other than identity politics and Palace Intrigue
Solution, vote in every single primary and vote AGAINST the incumbent 100% of the time. That is how voters beat the corporations.
Amen!!!
Corporations generally have NO ethics.
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.
“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.
This could highlight the unfairness of this railroad in this case, and may inspire voters to vote against "business friendly" Repubs. If there is a strike it will be informative to see how various media cover it.
Laurie, you are right to be interested in the way the media will cover a strike if it happens. I have noticed over time that media in general side with the corporations "gotta keep things moving, you know." They interview a worker or two but emphasize just how much trouble those workers will be causing even if they don't say it out loud. Maybe we need a little chaos on behalf of those men and women who kept those trains rolling under horrific conditions during a pandemic, who want a life, some considerations, and above all, respect!
Maybe. It depends on how the story is publicized (explaining in detail the grievances, citing instances where people have been penalized for being out with Covid or a heart attack), and if democrats publicly show their allegiance to the working class. It won’t pull the trumpist’s heads out of their butts, but maybe some swing voters will wake up
So much depends on how the media portrays a strike. I’ve seen too many stories suggesting the striking workers are spoiled children, when the reverse is true: it’s management that wants something for nothing.
Agreed. And in this day of corporate run media, you’ll rarely see the issue from the perspective of the working class. Chris Hayes or Rachel Maddow are the two exceptions where the story might get our perspective shared.
Done.... https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/1570342438379585537?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet
Wow, if he has accomplished this, for the welfare of the workers, fantastic! Thanks Daniel
There area, apparently, humane corporations in our very own country. The gesture by Patagonia should be cause to celebrate. The owner is giving all profits to climate solutions. Wow. I’ll buy Patagonia! Winter is on its way.
That was a very impressive move, and they even paid income taxes on their generosity. So very unRepublican!
Alas, Christopher, sometimes it takes some economic chaos to move to a different, hopefully better place. Workers have nearly always been the losers when a crisis happens because the rich have the money to plead their "poor me" case and to get legislators to buy it. The ones who keep things going and bring in the profits are the ones screwed and we the people allow it. I think we all bought the BS on that one. It is time we all wake up and see that it is no accident that we have super billionaires who care for no one but themselves and the power they can wield. They need to be either curbed or set aside to let them play in their own world. Remove their influence on businesses and politics. That would be ideal, but I just don't think enough Americans would go for it. "We" love our rich people for some reason. It makes no sense, but it is real.
I think his comment was made hours ago before news of a 'tentative' agreement is in the works. I don't think Foxx's statement was totally untrue. Democrats are blamed for everything, even things that are nonexistent and often things that were actually done by Republicans, like Powell with his interest raising 'solution'.
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.
It’s not an all or nothing proposition, Greg. It’s a “both, and…” one. How do we support every worker AND also strengthen democracy? I agree with you that we must have a more engaged and robust habit of participation in the political realm AND we must support better education practices, including the history of work and labor. Strengthening the warp and weft will, ultimately create a more rich and beautiful “tapestry of democracy.”
Greg, you are right about the importance of the legislatures and the vote. We need to mobilize as many people as we can for this November. I hope we can do it on behalf of all the workers who deserve better.
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.
Ian, yes exploitation has been a huge part of American business, giving the credit to none of thepeople who actually made the "innovation" happen. Then we exported our techniques around the world. I hope we can fix that.
Ian ; I guess if they could outsource the railroads they would.
RR's are heavily regulated.
D. S. ; Kinda hard to outsource at any rate. Like barber shops, in that way.
Or farms.
I'm not your mother but...
We didn't nationalize the industry but we do have Amtrak, a federally chartered corporation, with the federal government as majority stockholder. The Amtrak Board of Directors is appointed by the President of the United States and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Amtrak is operated as a for-profit company, rather than a public authority.
First ICC 1887.The Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 was designed to regulate the railroad industry, particularly its monopolistic practices. The Act required that railroad rates be "reasonable and just," but did not empower the government to fix specific rates.
When I was a kid, the wealthiest companies in the US were railroads -- NYC and Pennsy. E.G. Pennsy literally owned the most real estate and euphemistically the pa supreme court and legislature. After the decline of RRs due to the national highway system and attack by oil companies and car manufacturers, RRs were "deregulated" by the Staggers Act, 1980, Jimmy Carter.
Now. https://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/safetyfirst/federal-railroad-administration FRA regulates public and intercity rail services, but does not regulate "closed" railways that operate exclusively on private property, such as a rail system between buildings at a steel mill, nor does it regulate subways, light rail or elevated intra-city passenger rail systems that do not connect to any public rail.
My jurisdiction came through the whistleblower program. Federal Railroad Safety Act (FRSA)
49 U.S.C. §20109. https://www.whistleblowers.gov/statutes/frsa
"The North American rail transport system is characterized by a high level of geographical specialization, with large private rail carriers servicing large regional markets. The system is privately owned and operated, and each carrier has its facilities and thus its markets along the segments it controls. The rail system is the outcome of substantial capital investments occurring over several decades with the accumulation of impressive infrastructure and equipment assets. However, such a characteristic created issues about continuity within the North American rail network, particularly in the United States. Mergers have improved this continuity, but a limit has been reached in the network size of most rail operators.
Attempts have been made to synchronize the interactions between rail operators for long-distance trade with the setting of intermodal unit trains. Often bilateral, trilateral, or even quadrilateral arrangements are made between rail carriers and shipping companies to improve the intermodal interface at the major gateways or at points of interlining between major networks. Chicago is the largest interlining center in North America, handling around 10 million TEUs per year, a location at the junction of the Eastern, Western, and Canadian rail systems."
Where you a workin; John?
The Delaware Lackawan
What you doin' John?
I push I push I push.
Yes, Laurie, they would outsource the railroads too. Then, of course they would want the profits, if there are any and do nothing to protect the workers and encourage the country to which they were outsourced to exploit their workers as much as possible in the name of progress (really profits). Oh wait, how would that work! Ha!
It always comes back to corporate greed. Every. Single. Time.
Derek, funny how that corporate greed just keeps poppping up and how little we the people have done to curb it. I think we need a major tough love intervention to stop their addiction to the greed for money and power they have. It is worse than heroine or any of the other illicit drugs and we the people have called it legal.
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.
Phillip, you are right about health care and big Ag in this country. I am not sure how to improve this situation because those who are most victimized by this situation, rural people, keep voting for representatives who don't care about their health or food, only the power being in the state legislatures or Congress gives them. How do we get those folks to see that something different could help them more? It has been said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome. Well, right now related to health care and agriculture, there is a lot of insanity.
for now work on mid term elections for candidates supporting sustainable care for all including environment and health issues. The Sierra Club and LCV (League of Conservation Voters) are helpful in this. For equitable sustainable health promotion see The National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine (NAS/ NASEM) report " Emerging from COVID-19: Priorities for Health System Transformation" , the PNHP (Physicians for a National Health Plan, and the American Public Health Association (APHA). https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/26657/chapter/11#475 , https://pnhp.org/
https://www.apha.org/
Insanity fails to help but much of the problem is a lack of balance between the accumulation of resources; and the use of resources for public and environmental benefits. The resource holders/ controllers may be too anxious to get more; and the exploited and contaminated are anxious for their existence. Anxiety may be a super power if controlled but when out of balance it may be toxic to ourselves and others.
See my comments above.
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.
Mo 777 Jet This has me thinking about the 'inflation' we are experiencing here. The wealthy corps are enjoying the biggest profit margins in decades. Blame the workers. Raise interest rates to 'slow he economy'. Rubbish.
MO, I am so sorry to learn of your plight. I know it is the plight of many who thought their retirement would be manageable. Some people, the media, in particular are obsessed with wealthy people and they keep interviewing them as though they have anything to say, that they will say to the workers they have screwed. Until we get big donors out of politics, this problem will not stop. This morning when NPR was reporting on the possible agreement to prevent the rail strike, they only mentioned the pay increase. That was not even the main thing workers were asking for. They mentioned nothing about working conditions in the report. That is typical, so retirees like you will again feel the pain of loss because someone else gained. It is truly terrible reporting, but it works for the rich who want division in our nation, and they don't really care where it comes from as long as it gives them a "good" story of conflict that they can blame on Democrats and unions. How do we stop it? I don't know, but calling them out on it might get things rolling.
Thank you, Ruth. That's exactly right about money and sewing division. In my experience, one way the company benefited was to use pay issues to sew division among worker groups, ignoring safety and quality-of-life issues. They'd subtly turn lower-paid groups against higher-paid, when our common enemy was management. I don't know whether lower-paid groups genuinely believed that they'd be given raises if higher-paid worker compensation were cut or whether the problem was just hatred of anyone who has more, despite the requirement for more training and responsibility-taking. In addition to allowing the corporation to divide and conquer, that belief seems to foster the growing sentiment among younger workers that they deserve pay equal to that of experienced workers -- a mindset that has led to the kind of hate mail I saw from younger union reps wishing, in writing, that older workers would "drop dead." If it appears as though respect and manners have disappeared, as is often the case, I guess, follow the money. In any case, their divisive, money-emphasizing tactics helped them to achieve success, slashing pay in half, decimatung benefits, and terminating pensions. They did it with the public as well. When we went on strike for issues inuding safety and QOL, they led the public to believe pilots were just greedy. Today's pilots, apparently, learned from that as they're clearly emphasizing safety issues over pay. No one, however, seems to broadcast the size of CEO raises and bonus increases and the quality of their work in leading their company other than at the bottom line. If media cared at all about workers, they'd keep CEO compensation at the forefront of their reporting rather than making it invisible. And reporters ARE workers, but in addition to being pressured by their management, are they falling victim to the same divisive tactics that cost us so much? The other side of that division was to convince the higher-paid workers that they were really quasi-management members of the "good old boys" club, and (nudge, nudge) while the company may have to cut the compensation of lower-status workers, they'd surely never touch the pensions of their higher-paid buddies. Ha. So many believed that, even to the last moment. For sure, the many gullible aming those "buddies" were greatly surprised! Yet they still fall for that ego-incentive bs. They're still GOP voters, falling right into Trump's trap. They and they're egos learned nothing even from being lied-and-cheated out of millions in contractually obligated compensation, including their retirement-security pensions.
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!
Laurie, that could be a great idea to have the owners, those who are making the profits and huge salaries from the sweat of the freight workers to do the actual work of that railroad for a while. Unfortunately, there is no way they could do it without killing themselves or someone else because of their inability. It might make them a bit more appreciative of what the actual workers do. Nah! They are far past having empathy for anyone.
You're right, Ruth ; that would be like trying to make little Donnie wait tables.
I love the mental image however!
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.
Marilyn Eisenberg ; well ranted!
Mussolini was said to have "made the trains run on time." That's a lot different than getting the trains to run >at all.<
DZK; It's related though.But mussolini was very mean about it.
See Mr. Solomon's comment below. He brings settled law to bear in the discussion, along with a thumbnail history. I'll bet Biden was bringing settled law to bear in the negotiations - not "Black Shirts." (Of course, the Tweet-publicans would have us believe that only Black Shirts enforce Federal law.)
Not turn out well for those
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.
"I'd give it all up for just a little bit more".
Mr Burns
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
Sam! That was so well-said. Employees of the freight lines, do what you have to do to get what you need. I, too can wait for the freight!
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.
I agree. This morning's announcement of the agreement caught me a bit off guard. If Biden managed to pull it of, >that< is a real accomplishment. Otherwise, he'd have faced the debacle I mention in yesterday's discussion. But let's not get all ecstatic yet. The word I hear is "tentative." To paraphrase the immortal words of James Thurber, "lets not count our boobies before they're hatched!"
DZK ; LOL! Unless you don't have them! It would be zero, they are extinct, aren't they?
You might ask the unicorn in the garden if it's seen any around, and notify you if any show up! LOL!
ANNE D Young ; IF the DOJ can get its work done in time. I can't get my head around 'statutes of limitations' in a case as serious as Seditious attack on our Democracy and rule of law. The 'lawyer' pundits still talk about that threat to Justice.
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.
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
George Bond ; I have read that happy workers are more productive.
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.