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Old 03-17-11, 07:06 PM   #96
Sailor Steve
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gimpy117 View Post
ehhh...not so sure. It's a slippery slope. They start not watching out for their jobs and every time theres anything over a few inches of snow they'll get pushed out for private businesses. Just look at the union busting attempts now. Maybe theres a reason they feel under siege.
Not so much a slippery slope as a viscious circle. Employers don't care about employees, and working conditions are atrocious - "I owe my soul to the company store". Government won't do anything about it. Workers organize, create unions. Bloody wars are fought. Government steps in. Workers have rights too. Employers (some of them) become more sympathetic. Unions gain power. Sometimes union activities are legitimate, but some unions begin to like their power. Employers don't want some other organization telling them what to do. Unions make their workers go on strike in sympathy with some other workers they really don't know or care about. Employers retaliate by trying to force unions out. Many employees like the companies they work for and actually don't want unions. Both empoyers and unions try to use government to attain their goals, and the workers no longer have a say in it.

Today there are good companies and bad companies, and there are good unions and bad unions. The average worker is caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, and is used by both sides, and is worse off than ever (where actual power is at stake) and better off than ever (having things that his older counterparts couldn't dare even dream about).

If you say the companies are bad, you're a bleeding-heart liberal leftist. If you say the unions are bad, you're a knee-jerk neocon righty. Problem is, both of you are right, and both of you are wrong, and your one-sided politicking is the biggest part of the problem, and rather than work on an actual solution you spend all your time blaming each other and proving that you're right and the other guy is an idiot.

Congratulations. You've wasted everybody's time, resolved nothing, accomplished nothing (unless patting yourself on the back is an accomplishment) beyond taking up space.

Now that I've wasted everybody's time, resolved nothing and accomplished less, I'm going back to taking up my own space. At least I know I'm wrong.
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