union thugs invade townhall

[DCortez]

YouTube - Kathy Castor Town Hall Erupts in Tampa Florida, August 6th, 2009


It was mentioned on tv this morning that SEIU union thugs instigated, locked attendees out, ripped a man's shirt. GO GO DOHbama tactics!


[URL]http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/08/07/health-care-town-hall-turns-violent-tampa/[/URL]

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[DCortez]

Inside:YouTube - "Close Door - BS - I Pay For Mine - Union Tough" Kathy Castor Town Hall

 

[SiscoKid]

Wow!!!! Two compelling videos.

Trying to think deeply on this, I think there is a potential for a Rebellion in this country. This could escalate into real violence. People, even little old ladies, are ready to stand up and fight. The union thugs have to watch themselves, they can't push back too much.

It is getting interesting, REAL interesting.

 

[MadMo44Mag]

Good find DC.

 

[cuate]

Union Thugs

Union thugs should be very careful when trying to kick the butts of good

patriotic Americans, the butts they kick might be their own....They won't

be such overbearing obama lovers when unemployment hits their own

personal lives...Well, theres always that 10% that never learn....

 

[zembonez]

Unions are the cancer that will one day destroy this country.

 

[MadMo44Mag]

Unions are the cancer that will one day destroy this country.

One day is already come IMO!
Look at the damage they have done to the auto and air plane industries as well as others.
They are shameless money whores with no ones interest in mind but their own.

 

[DoubleActionCHL]

I don't think the majority of working Americans are willing to go quietly into this good night. The media, however, reports this as a bunch of unruly "planted" conservatives, or rowdy mobs. You didn't hear the media condeming the libs when they libs disrupted a speaking engagement by the Minutemen on border security at Columbia University.

YouTube - Minutemen Protest Storming At Columbia University

 

[cog41]

One day is already come IMO!
Look at the damage they have done to the auto and air plane industries as well as others.
They are shameless money whores with no ones interest in mind but their own.

Their day has come and gone. Workers can now organize and get most what they need or want without the dues, inside politics, infighting and not cause skyrocketing prices on the other end.

Term Limits!! Tort Reform!!

Throw off the oppressors!!

 

[idleprocess]

Unions are the cancer that will one day destroy this country.

At their core, labor unions are about self-interest for the worker when the relationship with management is poor. If corporations had better relations with their work forces, there wouldn't be unions because the best wouldn't join them since the environment would be tolerable and they wouldn't have unions holding them back with their focus on collectivism at the expense of the exceptional... but corporate cultures change slowly or take turns for the worse, so labor frequently organizes as a defensive measure.

I know that everyone has heard about UAW windshield installers making $37/hour and contracts mandating everything from low production quotas to ping pong tables located in prime production space on factory floors, but the reality is that unions are well past their prime days of the mid 20th century. I believe that UAW represents less than a quarter of the domestic automaker workforce due to shrewd negotiating by the automakers in the 1990s; new hires generally aren't UAW and get paid considerably less than "grandfathered" UAW members (air wages from what I've gathered).

The foreign automakers in the US don't have unions largely because they have better relations with their workforces as a result of more informed labor policy and seemingly more mature management that's more interested in results rather than dogma and power games.

I'm not saying that unions aren't part of this country's problems nor am I suggesting that they're not without numerous faults, but I believe they're much further down the list of guilty parties than most would place them.

 

[Texas42]

Idleproccess, are you saying that Labor unions of today are more of a symptom than the real problem? Interesting.

At my core, I think it is fine to be self-interested. We all are, but I think that many, if not most, unions are corrupt and will hurt everyone in the long run (besides a few, choice persons who run things).

As to these town hall meetings, you have several groups of people. Some that don't want to pay for healthcare and think they can get a free lunch/ think that the man is keeping them down and there are the people see this as another power grab for government.

The latter people are starting to get pissed. It isn't just "conservative plants" or corporate CEO's.

It is a bunch of people.

I wish they got pissed before the election, so then we might have had a lesser evil to deal with, or better yet, has someone who actually might have helped the USA.

 

[zembonez]

Fortunately the UAW's numbers are dwindling just like most every other union in this country. I stand by my original statement.

Unions are the cancer that will one day destroy this country.

They have proven time and time again that they are willing to put a company (or an industry) out of business rather than give with their demands. They are leeches that suck the lifeblood out of business.

Go ask the fine folks in the NorthEast why they don't have any jobs or industry anymore. They'll give you some BS story about how the foreigners put them out of work (that's the story the Unions sold them and many were not smart enough to see the truth). Truth is greedy unions bled the steel and manufacturing industries for so long that they relocated to keep from going bankrupt.... or stayed and went belly up.

Even the dumbest monkey normally will get out of the water when the piranhas start to bite his ass.

 

[idleprocess]

Go ask the fine folks in the NorthEast why they don't have any jobs or industry anymore. They'll give you some BS story about how the foreigners put them out of work (that's the story the Unions sold them and many were not smart enough to see the truth). Truth is greedy unions bled the steel and manufacturing industries for so long that they relocated to keep from going bankrupt.... or stayed and went belly up.

Interesting fact about the steel mills in the northeastern US - most of them are turn-of-the-century designs. Thanks to post-WWII reconstruction and the Marshall Plan, the Europeans and Japanese built new steels mills which were far more efficient than the 50+ year old mills in the US and capable of producing better products.

The large number of US steel manufacturing jobs "saved" in the 1970s and 1980s (at tremendous cost) couldn't stave off the need for massive investment in new infrastructure - which the industry by and large failed to do. Unions did indeed play a part in accelerating the downfall of the northeastern steel industry, but even without them it was inevitable.

The regulatory environment in the northeast doesn't much help either - local and state governments have their sticky fingers into everything - which makes it exceptionally difficult to operate as a private entity. My employer does a considerable level of business in the northeast and I'm consistently amazed that they can make money there. Thankfully, California - proud of "leading the nation" on state-level issues - is showing the rest of the US that massive top-down state government with enormous levels of taxation and regulation has substantial flaws.

There's almost never a simple answer for a complex social/economic problem.

 

[idleprocess]

Idleproccess, are you saying that Labor unions of today are more of a symptom than the real problem? Interesting.

There was a concept developed in the 1950s known as the "High Performance Organization" (or High Performance Team) that essentially tried to break down rigid hierarchies and other impediments preventing each member of the organization from performing at their best. While the concept was most often applied to "knowledge workers" such as technical organizations, marketing, and sales, it was also applied to numerous organizations with a traditional sharp division between "labor" and "management" with excellent results.

Unions simply do not form in these environments because of the culture shift that has generated a positive environment of trust and cooperation rather than suspicion and cynicism.

Of course, the fly in the ointment is that these organizations do require enormous culture shifts all around to achieve which can be challenging for those accustomed to the command-and-control culture of most corporations where management actively tries to screw labor and labor actively tries to screw management.

You can still see some of the vestiges of the concept with many organizations using more talented members of labor as "team leads," but generally leaving them as a powerless "team lead" forever or exercising the Peter Principle and moving them to management where they aren't using their skills and connections to best effect.

 

[M. Sage]

At their core, labor unions are about self-interest for the worker when the relationship with management is poor.

Too absolute. In many (possibly most) cases, the unions are responsible for fomenting bad relations with management.

 

[idleprocess]

Too absolute. In many (possibly most) cases, the unions are responsible for fomenting bad relations with management.

They certainly perpetrate bad management-labor relationships in many cases, but they're typically formed in response to a bad situation. Management is organized from the get-go ... labor has to go through the painful organization process in response - which it would rather not have to do (at this point in time) since unions bring their own sets of problem for labor... like keeping the below-average people employed while holding back the high performers.

 

[zembonez]

There's almost never a simple answer for a complex social/economic problem.

How true.

How true.

I don't think we disagree on all points... far from it. I don't see the unions as innocent bystanders quite the way you do... but we'll just have to agree to disagree there.

 

[idleprocess]

I don't think we disagree on all points... far from it. I don't see the unions as innocent bystanders quite the way you do... but we'll just have to agree to disagree there.

I'm not suggesting that they're innocent bystanders by any means - only that their share of the "guilt" is disproportional to the blame laid on them.

Every organization tends to behave in a tactical micro fashion rather than a stragetic macro fashion and wants trends to stay favorable rather that taking the big picture view. Workers want their wages to outpace inflation and their benefits to keep improving; corporation management wants to keep cutting costs and improving the performance of the organization. Needless to say, those motives are often mutually exclusive and lead to bad precedents for both sides.

 

[Major Woody]

That makes me lose all respect for unions. They have sold out to keep their pensions. I'll just bring my karate team to our meeting next time. We will lock them out.

 

[Texas42]

That makes me lose all respect for unions. They have sold out to keep their pensions. I'll just bring my karate team to our meeting next time. We will lock them out.

Major Woody. . . . This is a gun forum.

Karate is for those people that can't carry a gun. : P

I'm just messing with you.