It is outrageous that a group wants to take away a worker’s ability to independently work for an employer. This BIG UNION take over of an independent work force is anti-American and will forever doom that factory to a substandard work environment. BIG UNIONS take away worker incentive and endanger the quality of the equipment that are fighting men and women will rely on for battle.

The Union of Independent and Proud workers of America needs to step in. It is proven that independent workers produce more, work harder, work smarter and have a more responsible and productive relationship with their employers.

By the way, if someone if working at a job where 80% of their check goes to healthcare (and another 15% goes to the government) they should outright quit. I’m fairly certain that the “fact” above is quite a bit exaggerated.

Think!-Please provide link to your claim that “independent workers produce more ( are you talking piece work?), work harder, work smarter, and have a more responsible and productive relationship with their employer.”

Even the American Medical Association agrees that single payer would save money!

http://www.gjsentinel.com/health/content/shared-gen/ap/Health_Medical/MED_AMA.html
The American Medical Association issued its first health insurance report card at the group’s annual meeting Monday. …

UnitedHealthcare had the lowest rate of contract compliance, according to the AMA report. About 62 percent of medical services billed were paid by UnitedHealthcare at the contracted rate, compared with 71 percent for Aetna and 98 percent for Medicare. …

Medicare performed better than the private insurers in most areas, said Dr. Lawrence Casalino, a University of Chicago health economist and former physician. … “There’s no question that administrative costs for doctors and the country would be a lot lower in a single-payer system,” Casalino said in an interview after the meeting.

This is an excellent article about the rise of the unions and their effects on their employers:

http://mises.org/story/1861

It is simple common sense. When a job and wage are guaranteed, you will get less output. There is no incentive to perform or improve performance. Back in the early days of unions, there were some legitimate issues they were trying to address. We’re well past that point now, and the unions these days are big, slow bullies.

Take any profession, unionize it, and you’ll see a drastic reduction in output and acheivement.

You want to see a true comparison? Go to any union factory, let independent workers in alongside union workers. Then see what happens. Oh wait, unions would never allow that.

What’s up with the $270/wk health plan? If you’re going to pay your employees $8.50/hr (320/wk), then you better have a more realistic health plan in place. Otherwise, all of you anti-union folks will be footing the bill for unpaid medical expenses, etc. It’s a vicious cycle. I believe it starts with the employer. They hold the cards. When you reduce your employees to this substandard quality of life, believe me, you’re not getting the most out of anyone. You’re just getting what you pay for. Try motivating or improving the efficiency of your operations at $8.50/hr and health insurance that no one working for you can afford.

I hate to say it since I have union organizers in my backround, but some unions are worse than the company line nowadays. One of my grandfathers organized railroad machinists back in the early days of the last century. Back when you could be killed for doing so. My family had to move several times, and the normal slurs were thrown (even by the press) that included socialist, communist, etc. Women weren’t even on the radar screen of the jobs, nor were folks of color or foreigners.
In later years unions became much more corrupt, and fat cat organizers stole from the workers. Many here locally got into politics, and from there the graft and corruption soared. You do have some union workers who slack because they have never known bad times. They got soft, fat and happy.
Yet we still have companies squeezing folks out of a fair wage. And it is getting worse as we lose our real american prosperity and place in the world. Answers come hard nowadays. We DO need to change our ME FIRST attitudes most americans now have. That’s the first step. To start raising the next generation differently. But I feel folks need to decide if they want to pay dues or not. Decide if they want to belong to any group or not. Decide if they want to pay for a Hoffa to live large or not. Many unions have been infiltrated with a very nasty element that is worse than many old time union busters. As long as folks are forced to buy on price because all of us are being squeezed economically, you’ll have worker exploitation occurring. And as we breed like rats, you’ll always have a hungry person willing to work for less.
So much more is tied together than we imagine. And as we can see by the number of folks that still defend George Bush and his party of me first peoples, it isn’t going to be easy to change things.

Think…it can go both ways. Since you mentioned unsafe equipment for our troops (such a heartstring-tugging example)I’ll tell you my experience with a non-union defense company. The kind where when HR folks heard they broke a strike, they cheered so you could hear them in the halls.
This company has execs up for government investigation as we speak. Execs were stealing from the company left and right, and it was a toxic place emotionally for workers. Most worked very hard. But heaven help you if you tried to report the crooked execs who were hampering troop efforts, and taking resources that would have gotten better equipment to the troops quicker. Guess what? No representation at all meant you got fired for trying to report wehat your employment contract said you were required to. The person assigned to assure reporting happened was related to the crooked exec at the top of the heap. HR worked to assure the honest worker was sent out the door without any benefits or exit interviews. I know this personally. No matter how many years of good performance reviews, you were illegally terminated. And the whistleblower laws have been gutted in MO, so don’t think you have much backup there. They even banned reporters from this newspaper from their PR meetings for the press when they reported a few “bad practices”.
These folks regularly fired older engineers for no good reason but they didn’t want to pay retirements promised. So before you use that example, think twice. There are other issues there that still exist to hamper getting good equipment to the troops. Real worker representation would only help the troops you care about in those situations. Workers at least need independent reps to go to when we are talking about something as serious as defense contracting.

Here is a little info about Obama that Phil won’t be writing about. I think it is a terrible thing not to let people vote secretly - that is like living in Cuba which is communist.
http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/06/13/tennessee-dem-suggests-obama-may-be-terrorist-connected/all-comments/

I worked as a TPT for 5 years at Chrysler’s North Plant in Fenton. Let me tell you about those full time union workers! If it wasn’t in their job description then they wouldn’t do it. Part-timers got a couple hours to learn a job but the full-time folks got 3 days. When they added more work to jobs the shit usually hit the fan, most complained and b****ed for a week.

Unions are just another big corporation and they want your money. They make people lazy. There was a time and a place for unions. Today there should be no time or no place.

This country needs unions now more than ever. Some of these comments are a result of decades of a systematic effort by big business (in collusion with the government) to undermine people’s view of the unions. The only reason we still have a middle class in this country is because of the shift from a one income household to a two income household. Businesses whine because they have to pay a living wage to their employees and they can’t compete. Well, if you can’t compete close your doors, somebody smarter that knows how to run a business will make it work. As far as I’m concerned, the most important function a business has is to pay it’s employees, if a business isn’t paying their employees a decent wage, society is better off if they close down. And there is plenty of productivity data out there to show that union shops are by far more efficient than non-union shops. It’s common sense that working in an environment in which you are under constant threat of dismissal for wages that give you no financial security is not going to make you more productive.

As far as healthcare goes, the country’s economy has billions syphoned off of it by a bunch of cube hives specifically designed to increase the red tape and beauracracy all to keep health care professionals from getting paid. The insurance industry adds 0 value to the delivery of healthcare, and in fact worsens the care Americans get because their profit margins rely on the denial of coverage.