National Healthcare for the USA

by sammielee24 348 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  sammielee24

  Unions can lobby congress... Corporations can lobby congress.

  Unions are member funded organizations that represent WORKERS.

  Corporations are businesses that that work for shareholders.

  ..and that is why it is so nice to see some of the big unions supporting the national healthcare bills - and more are being added every day. I fully support unions - I worked in one only for a short time - 6 years before I switched to 20 years in non profit non unionized. If not for unions, we would not be assured of many of the rights as workers we have today. Do I think at times they might be over the top? I do. But overall I look at the way that companies were forced to change their practices because of unions and those changes have been for the benefit of us all.

  People in unionized settings generally have better benefits including vacation, sick time, insurance and adherence to policies determined in the safety acts. swife.
• 

  SWALKER

  Just so you know, the word "welfare" is not exclusive to government. In the working world "welfare" relates to things like vacation time, overtime, workplace safety, etc. You know, employee welfare. Some unions use "well being" instead of "welfare."

  ** I really did not mean to take anything out of context. I was just lazy and didn't feel like highlighting your whole sentence.

  Not that it makes a lot of difference. I think the problem in that YOU use welfare to describe benefits a company offers it's employees. Most people just call them what they are: benefits or benefits package.

  It's yellow sticky time again so get your pen and paper ready:

  Corporate welfare usually describes government money being spent to subsidize an unprofitable company. Right now we see a lot of corporate welfare going to Oil industries which are making record profits.

  Welfare does not at any time relate to things like vacation time, overtime, and .... workplace safety (you really don't care about anyone else do you? Why did you even list this one?) EXCEPT when employee benefits are taken away to subsidize unprofitable company. In which case it is Corporate Welfare or Welfare for the company. It is not welfare for the employees which is what you're ranting on about hardly making any sense because you keep misusing common terms or making up meanings for them. (which by the way is also common practice for WTS.)
• 

  frozen one

  Our contract is currently being negotiated with the employer so I hear the words "health and welfare" quite often. I'll pass on to the Business Agent that we shouldn't use these terms and see what the response is. Other unions also use the terms. You can e-mail them if you care to:

  http://www.teamsterslocal638.org/benefits/health.html

  http://www.boilermakers.org/3-Benefits/HandW.htmlr

  http://www.ufcw1518.com/benefits/health/ovrevised-1.pdf

  http://www.iuoe.org/organizing/HW.htm

  There are more.

  For the record, I am opposed to any kind of tax dollars going to support a for-profit entity if that support is a grant. I do support the idea that the government may LOAN money to an enterprise that cannot secure a loan from another source if the company has a business plan that suggests the company has a fairly good chance of repaying the loan. Example of these loans were to the Chrysler Corp and to Harley-Davidson. Both companies repaid the loans in full. Without federal loans both of these companies would be in the history books.

  you really don't care about anyone else do you? Why did you even list this one?

  LOL!!!! I was wondering how long it would take for a personal attack. You don't know me. Please try to stay on topic without talking out of your ass.
• 

  LDH

  Frozen One,

  I work with unions on an almost daily basis. You give an outsider the most succinct synopisis of unions in this country I have ever seen on this forum.

  Unions have held corporations hostage. "You WILL pay Booby $36 an hour to load boxes." In my humble opinion the time for the Union has come and gone. Unions were at one time critical, that's before the laws of the country caught up with the games employers play. Now we have OSHA and a MULTITUDE of other federal oversight agencies, making the unions not only useless but dangerous.

  They have crippled the airline industry, refusing to negotiate with management for 'the good of the union.'

  They are working hard on negotiating themselves right out of a job.

  As for Swife and Swalker, try to ignore. They like media sound bites but don't know how to answer questions with credible information.

  For example:

  Welfare does not at any time relate to things like vacation time, overtime, and .... workplace safety (you really don't care about anyone else do you? Why did you even list this one?) EXCEPT when employee benefits are taken away to subsidize unprofitable company.

  this nimrod will not even acknowledge the existence of the USDOL (Department of Labor) Pension and WELFARE Benefits Administration.

  They can't admit to being wrong. This is the way the whole thread has gone. No surprise. If *I* can disrupt their stupid little arguments, don't you think multi-billion dollar insurance companies would have a heyday? This is why NHS is nowhere NEAR to getting passed. Thank God.

  Lisa

  Not Stuck on Stupid Class
• 

  LDH

  LOL!!!! I was wondering how long it would take for a personal attack.

  Like "Medeival Times and wants you to come home" with three misspellings in one sentence.

  When there is no argument of fact, attack the other person. Classic.
• 

  Sailor Ripley

  Get rid of the "slackers" abusing your government assistance programs and you might have more money to fund your philanthropy. If you think that everyone gets better healthcare and we all pay less, I would ask to put into a balance sheet. Then I'll listen. Stop relying on ultraleftistlib.org
  
  
  Dear SWalker,
  
  
  Why do homework when I experienced, more importantly managed an "exodus" as you call it? I call it expanding. I realize that companies are leaving the US. I managed a team of ex-patriot managers in India. We saved a lot of money by putting them there and hiring Indians. We could get highly educated workers that really wanted to work allowing us to forego the BS of the whiny American workers that we had hired to do low-level factory jobs. These are the clowns to which I refer so often. The ones that come in with no skills, no ambition and bad attitudes but want to be paid over $10 per hour because we're America and they are entitled and they deserve it.
  
  
  I'll tell you now, from experience, not from some leftist, lib website that we left the US due to many variables, not the least was healthcare.
  
  
  Unions? How did we get on Unions? Why do we need unions today? I worked for a union shop. It was highly inefficient, to the point of stupidity. You can't open the door for me as I'm management and it's not listed in your task list. This is stupid and this job cries to be taken away and move abroad... or globalized. All the points that you bring up have already been proven to be rife with errors and problems. Sure something must change, but this ain't it. Hillary is a Socialist and so is her "not-for-profit" program.
  
  
  I'll tell you to go and earn multiple degrees, work your way through lower-level managment, excel at upper-level management at a multi-national conglomerate before you start questioning my understanding of business, Ma'am.
• 

  frozen one

  Thanks Lisa.

  Occasionally I like to get involved in these types of debates and participate until people make personal attacks. For someone who doesn't know me from Adam to suggest I don't care is really insulting.

  A lot of people don't understand, or refuse to understand, the symbiotic relationship between a union and an employer. It is not "us vs them" most of the time. A lot of people base their opinions on what they hear in the news and the news tends to emphasize labor/mgmt conflict because "if it bleeds, it leads."

  I do disagree with you about unions. I would like to see unions reborn. I believe that SOME companies treat their labor force like cannon fodder. I have participated in outreach programs with non-union work forces but it is a struggle. Some people are really worried about being branded "union agitators" by their employer. I encourage people working in non-union environments to "Organize, organize, organize." Sometimes the threat of an organized workforce will give reason for employers to re-evaluate priorities. Some workforces do not want to unionize because they already recieve fair compensation for the work performed.

  I'm sorry if I am sounding combative here, but the airline unions have made concession throughout the industry. Again, it is that symbiotic relationship. Whats the point of bankrupting your employer? I do hope the airline unions did have language in the agreements regarding reopeners when the goals and objectives of the concessions are met. I would guess they do. Unions have been on this road before.

  Thanks again, Lisa, for your post. I've read a lot of what you have written in this thread. You have an interesting point of view.
• 

  frozen one

  Unions? How did we get on Unions?

  I read a post and brought up the union subject.
• 

  Sailor Ripley

  Frozen One,
  
  I see. I do understand symbiotic relationships. Unfortunately from what I saw, and I was "Management", that definition did not apply for us. We were one of the largest union shops in the US. My take, it took an extremely long time to get simple tasks changed. If the worker is doing the exact same thing every day then maybe it will work; but in the just-in-time environment of business today where bobbing and weaving is not only expected but demanded it didn't seem to work. I asked an "old schooler" once if he ever saw xxxx without unions. I thought he had seen a ghost. He couldn't see it as that all he knew.
  
  If yours works then more power to you and I wish you well. If people were paid on their ability vs. a rate chart would they be better? ...but I digress.
  
  Back to NHC. I still say, I will support it if it doesn't cost me or my company more. Oh, yeah then there's that Not-for-profit thing. I want a doctor that realizes that if they don't do their job well they will have no patients. If they're not great then they make little to no money. If they are great then they make a lot of money. No Slacker Doctors, which will certainly be produced by not-for-profit.
• 

  wednesday

  I've lived in the southwest all my life and have never seen a union around here . Unions are "akin" to communists, at least that is what the older people think. I for one think it might be nice to have had a choice, our state is a right to work which cleaverly makes the naive think we are proteceted, but we aren't. You can be fired for any reason, no reason. You really have almost no firghts and barring a major osha violation, they won't touch an emplorer. Also our workers comp laws are a joke. don't get sick or hurt here.