(Confirmed!) We're hearing that police have joined the rally in WI after being asked to disperse th

reply to post by mayabong


All the European countries who have some socialist policies still have democratic, representative governments. Communist countries (and there are not many left) also have governments and law and order.

If you read and listen to something other than right-wing commentators you might know a little more about what socialism and communism are really about.

reply to post by ugie1028


Police joining union labor protests is certianly nothing new. Police, after all, are union members themselves and it's common for them to sympothize with labor strikes.
Its truly ridiculous. Let me give you an example. I was a vendor (ie: a consultant employed by an outside company to provide IT services for Verizon, NOT an employee) for Verizon during the Bell Atlantic - GTE merger which formed Verizon. During this time, there was a major strike by the IBEW and CWA unions. The union employees were made to belive by the union leadership that thier pay and benefits were at stake, but they weren't. The strike was REALLY about a power grab. Former BA was very union heavy (being in the Northeast) but GTE was not (being based mostly out of Texas and other southern right-to-work states). The BA union leadership wanted to unionize all the GTE employees.
Now there in the middle of it, was me. Being a vendor dedicated to Verizon, I HAD to cross the picket lines. Picket lines are intimidating places. People, like me, we being threatened and insulted (some spit on) called SCAB and such (although I was not a scab. And you cant tell the strikers that as they are so drunk on anger, they dont believe you.)
The Police are there at the picket lines at the building entrances and thier job is to open holes in the picket line to allow you to enter the building. But often they just stand there as they sympathize with the picketers. And people like me, especially if we didnt have a female coworker with us, were essentially forced to risk assault on a daily basis.
So, again, no real story here man it happens all the time.

reply to post by ugie1028


I completly agree

Here you go...
What is the truth of our present problem?:
1. All governments (Federal, State and Local) are taking in less tax revenue because of the recession.
2. The recession was caused by Bankers.
a. Our past president de-regulated numerous bank oversight regulations.
b. Banks could now be “investment banks” and sell debts on the open markets (to make more money at greater risk to society). Remember when your bank was actually a “bank”?
c. Banks then legally loaned excessive amounts of money to poor bets such as subprime debtors (and other dubious things that use to be illegal).
d. Banks marketed these bad debts to investors as “Collateralized Debt Obligations” (they were just bad loans hidden behind a fancy, Wall Street name).
e. Banks convinced bond rating agencies such as Moody’s to give the Collateralized Debt Obligations a AAA rating (great investment!).
f. AIG, who insures bank loans, maximized their profit thus had no capital to pay distressed loans.
g. Based on AAA rating, fund managers such as the State of Wisconsin retirement fund, bought a bunch of Collateralized Debt Obligations. Retirement funds don’t hold cash, they invest their money just like everyone else.
h. Subprime loans were not repaid by debtors.
i. Bad debts couldn’t be paid by AIG because there was no money.
j. State retirement funds dried up (Mississippi’s went bankrupt).
k. Taxpayers (you and me) gave $800 billion to the bankers and AIG (who then took large bonuses).
l. Bankers and AIG laugh all the way to the bank; they made billions and stayed in business after going bankrupt.
m. Our national and state debts go up and you and I will pay these bankers forever.
3. Country blames the new president – Obama (he wasn’t president when any of this happened).
4. Because this is Obama’s fault, the country elects republicans at the mid-term elections (Walker) to chase out the “tax and spend Democrats” (recall the banker story above).
5. Republicans cut taxes for the rich (less revenue for depleted States because of the bankers recession).
6. An now for the crowning lie of all (truth…if you watch Fox News)….BLAME THE TEACHERS!

reply to post by TheWalkingFox


the unsafe working conditions would be more of a matter of state and federal saftey laws not being enforced not whether there was a union there or not. a union can't tell an employer what chemicals they can or can't use. whether employees fail to use common sense or not and not act like a jackass and risk there own saftey. If anything the employees there should have been calling the state labor board and the federal authorities to investigate any saftey violations.

As for Bennies not kicking in until 2 years there is no law that says a employer has to give any bennies. and if the company actually did fire employees at 1 year 11 months which honestly i find a little hard to believe they would be open to any number of civil lawsuits and lawsuits from the state.

thanks for the tip on Tillamook beef jerky i've never seen it for sale here in my neck of the woods but if i do i'll be sure not to buy it.





reply to post by g146541


Hmmm post a copy of a pay stub online? your joking right?

Anyway i don't have any pay stubs from that employer anymore. since its been about 12 years since i last worked for them. But you do the math, my weekly net pay on average was $480. the union took $115 a week in union dues. so not quite 25% but pretty damn close.

And as for whether you believe me or not i could really give 2 ***** if you do or not. I have no reason to fabricate anything. I have no personal interest on a union fight in a state i don't live in. As a matter of fact in my very first post in this thread i said both sides were wrong. both sides need to sit down and negociate some pay cuts and and increase in the amount of monies the teachers contribute to there own benefits. The teachers and their union in WI seem to have forgotten the serve at the pleasure of the people of WI not the other way around! After all it is the tax payers money Of WI they they recieve their income from when they work, its those same tax payers that are paying the retirement and health benefits while they work. I think its fair that the teachers should have to chip in a few more dollars of their own pay for their retirement benefits.


I may not like unions and i will never join one again but i won't stop anyone else from joining one if they wish. I do believe there was a time and a place for unions and that time has long passed and that place is not today. But if the smaller remaining numbers of union employees want to keep their union By all means let them keep them in the private sector! there should not be any unions in ANY PUBLIC sector job. And there needs to be a major reform in unions in general!

I don't think Scott Walker will be able to recover from this one.

reply to post by Mercenary2007


I had no idea that unions took out that much money. Thats retarded.

Just wanted to repost a link in an earlier post.

A DIFFERENT SLANT ON THIS ISSUE:

The-Koch-Brothers-End-Game-in-Wisconsin

maybe it is not so much about union collective bargaining rights.

So in short:


1) Koch Brothers get their puppet Governor Walker in power
2) Governor Walker gins up a crisis
3) Democrats and Progressives take the bait and counter-protest on collective bargaining
4) Governor Walker will compromise on collective bargaining if the rest of the budget is passed as is
5) Bill passes, with trojan horse give-a-way to the Koch Brothers nested in
6) Koch Brothers will buy Wisconsin state-owned power plants for pennies on the dollar in closed unsolicitated bids for which there will be no oversight
7) Koch Brothers get the best vertical monopoly in a generation

reply to post by klarkowski67

Congressional Republicans intent on big spending cuts are on a collision course with Wall Street's top regulators over a plan to slash millions from agency budgets. Lawmakers are targeting the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission. The work of both agencies is set to balloon as the Dodd-Frank financial reform law is implemented.

money.cnn.com...

and of course, heaven forbid, the agencies get the funding to prevent such a fraud from occurring again!!!

and, well, I bet billions will appear out of nowhere to bailout the banks again, since the legal fees they are finding themselves faced with are apt to topple them!!!


www.thestreet.com...

I like the little part at the end about how it will take years to settle all these suits, and they will have to take the securities one at a time to just untangle the mess!!!

while they close down schools, lay off teachers, policemen, and firefighters, cut our services, sieze our ira funds, get rid of social security and the pensions!!!
it's funny, they can always find the money for the stupid things they want, and they can orchestrate these giant scams that rip billions off the people....
but, then they can't afford to keep a school open, to keep the police force manned??
it's their priorities that are wacked out, and their inablitilty to remember just who they are supposed to be working for....
we, the people.....ALL OF THE PEOPLE!!!




ain't no one getting my vote unless they start speaking the truth once in awhile....

reply to post by DJOldskool


1 and 5 on that list have been debunked thoroughly in many threads. Some of the others did happen and others may or may not happen. I guess that is a "slant", a slant from supporters of the Democrats and Progressives(#3) that refuse to look at the facts instead of making it up.

Originally posted by klarkowski67
Here you go...
What is the truth of our present problem?:
1. All governments (Federal, State and Local) are taking in less tax revenue because of the recession.
2. The recession was caused by Bankers.
a. Our past president de-regulated numerous bank oversight regulations.
b. Banks could now be “investment banks” and sell debts on the open markets (to make more money at greater risk to society). Remember when your bank was actually a “bank”?
c. Banks then legally loaned excessive amounts of money to poor bets such as subprime debtors (and other dubious things that use to be illegal).
d. Banks marketed these bad debts to investors as “Collateralized Debt Obligations” (they were just bad loans hidden behind a fancy, Wall Street name).
e. Banks convinced bond rating agencies such as Moody’s to give the Collateralized Debt Obligations a AAA rating (great investment!).
f. AIG, who insures bank loans, maximized their profit thus had no capital to pay distressed loans.
g. Based on AAA rating, fund managers such as the State of Wisconsin retirement fund, bought a bunch of Collateralized Debt Obligations. Retirement funds don’t hold cash, they invest their money just like everyone else.
h. Subprime loans were not repaid by debtors.
i. Bad debts couldn’t be paid by AIG because there was no money.
j. State retirement funds dried up (Mississippi’s went bankrupt).
k. Taxpayers (you and me) gave $800 billion to the bankers and AIG (who then took large bonuses).
l. Bankers and AIG laugh all the way to the bank; they made billions and stayed in business after going bankrupt.
m. Our national and state debts go up and you and I will pay these bankers forever.
3. Country blames the new president – Obama (he wasn’t president when any of this happened).
4. Because this is Obama’s fault, the country elects republicans at the mid-term elections (Walker) to chase out the “tax and spend Democrats” (recall the banker story above).
5. Republicans cut taxes for the rich (less revenue for depleted States because of the bankers recession).
6. An now for the crowning lie of all (truth…if you watch Fox News)….BLAME THE TEACHERS!

Your "truth" of our present problem, isint really "truth" I'm afraid.

Your putting the blame for the ression entirely on the crash of the housing market. In reality the recession is the result of a number of problems initially triggered by the spike in Oil prices. The spike in oil prices was largely the result of speculation (people "us", buying oil on the commodities market who have no intention of taking delivery of the oil, rather only profiting by raising prices).

Jobs (aka, Taxes). Congress over the past 10 years has continued to raise taxes to the point where its less and less profitable for buisnesses to employ domestic labor. (The unions only made this worse by the way by raising the cost of labor in union heavy industries, particularly manufacturing).

The Housing Market. Nice veiled attempt to blame bush, but your wrong. Part of it was the Bankers, most of it was "Us" (personal greed - want to have what the next guy has wether or not we can afford it) and part of it It was Congress (controlled by the democrats by the way) particularly Rep. Barney Frank -D, MA. Who was responsible for forcing the largest lenders Fannie/Freddie to issue sub-prime mortgages which enabled "Us".

And no one is blaming "The teachers" you leftist union shill.

I think you have mistaken me as a "Union Left Wing Shill". I have no party. I am not in a union. Let's just say greed on each side has a big part to all of this. I would like to see middle ground and progress. I can dream can't I? Maybe?

They are still there.

Brow Beat

It's been a good week for fans of the bombastic ‘80s musical Les Misérables. First, Anne Hathaway parodied "On My Own" (a.k.a., the awkward 13-year-old's Song of Big Feelings) at this Sunday's Oscars. That same day, inside Madison, Wisconsin's Capitol building, a group of protesters rallied the troops with a version of the show's big 11th-hour number, "Do You Hear the People Sing." Now you have to take these guys seriously, Scott Walker!

reply to post by g146541

Huh??
It seems the Unions are looking out for the little guy here.
United we stand divided we fall, sounds familar?
The problem here is not the teachers it is the administration, whether school or gubbment.
No sense making the little guy pay.

But the little guy does pay, forever, when following the union lead. You are being mislead. The unions do NOT represent the interests of the workers in the US or virtually anywhere in the industrialised world. How do I know that? Because history tells me so. Recent history more so.

Have workers anywhere ever got even close to the concessions they demanded via unions?

If you are teacher then wise up and check out the complicity and manipulation that has been the record of the unions. You just need to check out the last decade. In workers disputes time after time unions have called meetings and then cancelled them to announce they had negotiated in secret with the employees. Or they call a strike to protest an action. It lasts a couple of days then they agree to 95% of the employees demands. Union bosses get fat salaries. Check it out.

The institution of unions exists for three reasons.
1. To enable employERS to get the conditions they demand the workers agree to.
2. For themselves, unions exist because they work for the employers, not the employees, despite their posturing and lies.
3. To channel dissent, so that workers do not unite and change the system to one fair and equal and valuing life rather than profit.

reply to post by Tallone

go back, oh, I don't know maybe 50, 60 years or so, and you will find a union that is more useful to the employees that they are supposed to represent....
just like just about everything else! including our gov't!
so, is it really that the unions, the gov't is bad, or is it more that we have allowed corruption, greed, to permeate our society and poison our country???

reply to post by klarkowski67


There it is! I am going to copy and paste that and print it off and hand it to what ever dumb frack I am arguing with at the time....That is the whole ball of wax.....That should be a thread of its own....Titled....
"What you need to know if you have been in a coma for the last 5 years."
Amen Brother (or sister)

Originally posted by PplVSNWO

Originally posted by Kailassa
I was able to collect enough evidence before I left to have the company agree to allow unionisation rather than have their practises revealed. Once the place was unionised wages went up, women could be promoted and women could no longer be blackmailed into engaging in sex.

Wow, threatening to report a companies illegal activities unless they allow unions to come in. Isn't that blackmail?

Odd.
You don't seem to object to the women being blackmailed for sex.

reply to post by dawnstar

The history of unions seems to underline they were created to control dissent. As you say going back enough decades you can find them appearing to work effectively on behalf of the workers. In fact, it was simply that economic conditions were such the factory owners and other heads of industry of the time could afford to be generous. The war was won with the help of the production lines which now produced for a strong demand (actively encouraged) from a vast domestic market - talking the USA here. The nation was wealthy.

Conditions are not the same today. Vastly and permanently different. The real nature and shape of the beast can be clearly made out. If you go back far enough into history you will see that unions were just factions that rarely did more than posture as representative of workers.

Today look at what has happened in the USA. Look at how the unions betrayal of workers has been progressive and relentless. From teachers at all levels of education to workers on the production lines in the factories of GM and Ford.

You can see for yourself from some of the posts on this thread how unions are presented by some posters in strawman arguments to attack the rights of Wisconsin workers to unite and confront the shredding of their basic human rights which are really human needs for the security of home and family. Other posters are simply totally sucked in by the media fed propaganda campaign painting unions as the instigators of this protest. They certainly are not.

After reading some posts here it's very obvious that a few members here have no understanding of basic economics, basic finance, and seem to have an absolute lack of common sense.

While the conservative right is raping america with its corporate greed, the liberal left along with unions are also raping the american tax payer for years.

Many unions, especially public ones across the country have exorted the american taxpayer to the point where 60,70,80% of a city's budget is dedicated to solely police and fire. Where cops and fire-fighters here in California make 75-150k+ and with fat ass pensions totallying 3% of their salary. There are retired cops taking in over $100k/year in California - it is not that uncommon. Teachers here in California making 75k-100k with fat pensions taking in 75k/year. Then you throw the corporate greed into the mix, where obviously stupid and corrupt (I guess a mix of both) pension funds such as California's CALPERS is about to bankrupt and the state.

Guys, unions were created for a good cause. Many have since evolved into some blood sucking creature that is hell-bent on extorting the tax payer. Others have sucked the life out of corporations where there's only 3 winners at the corporatiosn - the older union members set to retire on their fat pensions (the newbies of course get nothing), the corporate fat-cats and their 7 figure salaries, and the off-shore factories that now make the products because there's no way in hell you can afford to pay a union member the $65k/year he demands to turn a goddamn bolt when some foreigner is willing to do it for 1/10 the price.

reply to post by PplVSNWO


Thanks for info, so there is no clause in the bill for no oversight on the power plant sales that the website shows?