Spintested

Groups Vow To Push ‘Right To Work' In Other States

Thursday, December 13, 2012

You asked about organizing and I answered.

I can tell you what I've heard from workers who don't want to pay union dues and it's always about the money. 'If they don't have to then why should they' is their reasoning. They know that whatever gains a union negotiates at contract time they will reap the benefit of, too, no matter whether they pay dues or not, so why pay dues?

This is hardly "much ado about nothing". The push for 'right to work' is to institute 'take backs' (wages and benefits and safety regulations and working conditions) along with breaking and eliminating unions and an assault on the Democratic Party and the progressive movement.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

John Boehner Fiscal Cliff Comparison Says Dem Plan Is Christmas Fantasy

Spending on social programs like food stamps is the problem? Anything but cutting military spending:

Then-defense secretary Robert M. Gates stopped bagging his leaves when he moved into a small Washington military enclave in 2007. His next-door neighbor was Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, who had a chef, a personal valet and — not lost on Gates — troops to tend his property.

Gates may have been the civilian leader of the world’s largest military, but his position did not come with household staff. So, he often joked, he disposed of his leaves by blowing them onto the chairman’s lawn. “I was often jealous because he had four enlisted people helping him all the time,” Gates said in response to a question after a speech Thursday. He wryly complained to his wife that “Mullen’s got guys over there who are fixing meals for him, and I’m shoving something into the microwave. And I’m his boss.”

Of the many facts that have come to light in the scandal involving former CIA director David H. Petraeus, among the most curious was that during his days as a four-star general, he was once escorted by 28 police motorcycles as he traveled from his Central Command headquarters in Tampa to socialite Jill Kelley’s mansion. Although most of his trips did not involve a presidential-size convoy, the scandal has prompted new scrutiny of the imperial trappings that come with a senior general’s lifestyle.

The commanders who lead the nation’s military services and those who oversee troops around the world enjoy an array of perquisites befitting a billionaire, including executive jets, palatial homes, drivers, security guards and aides to carry their bags, press their uniforms and track their schedules in 10-minute increments. Their food is prepared by gourmet chefs. If they want music with their dinner parties, their staff can summon a string quartet or a choir.

The elite regional commanders who preside over large swaths of the planet don’t have to settle for Gulfstream V jets. They each have a C-40, the military equivalent of a Boeing 737, some of which are configured with beds.

Groups Vow To Push ‘Right To Work' In Other States

Did you ever see the movie Norma Rae? Unions do try to organize in those states, but are met with the brutal thuggish tactics of union-busting managers who instill abject fear in employees who are receptive to union representation. The same sort of tactics that we saw in the 2012 election, that if Obama was reelected employers would be forced to lay-off workers, is what employers threaten their workers with when unions try to organize. Even though it's against the law to fire employees for being receptive to union representation, it's regularly done and employers get away with it by trumping up complaints against union-sympathizers' work.

Why should workers not have to pay dues to a union that has gotten them higher wages and benefits? If they don't want to pay dues, are they willing to give back the gains achieved for them by unions?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Walmart Workers At Risk In States Rejecting Obamacare Medicaid Expansion

FWIW, ACA was born out of the rightwing Heritage Foundation, and comparable to Romneycare.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Tom Harkin: Conservative Media 'Manufactured' Fiscal Cliff Crisis 'To Scare People' (VIDEO)

For the last forty years, workers have seen their wages suppressed and kept stagnant, while their productivity soared. CEOs pressed for lower income tax rates and were successful in securing the lowest income tax rates in a century For themselves. There is rumbling that the rich need more… like raising our Medicare age from 65 to 67. Like lowering your Social Security benefits through a chained CPI. Yet two guys are secretly negotiating away your life’s earned benefits.

No deal.

Tax rates for the top income level need to go up. No cuts to our earned benefits, to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. No raising eligibility age for Medicare. No more givebacks to the folks who have been taking from us for forty years. But that’s not the end of this.

On Medicare, we want a public option for non-Medicare folks, a public option that works with Medicare to keep costs down. Allow Medicare to bargain for lower drug prices. Allow Medicare to compete to lower the costs of medical equipment and devices.

These are not my ideas. This initiative is from the AFL-CIO, a federation of unions that has been looking out for workers since before I was born.

Two guys secretly negotiating all of this in a room? Unacceptable. Tell your elected officials where you stand.

Here is a number to use to call your Senators and Representatives, to let them know what kind of a deal you expect - 888-659-9401.

First you will be asked if you want to reach your Senator or your Representative. After you choose an option you will be asked for your zip code, then your call will be directed to the right telephone number.

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Groups Vow To Push ‘Right To Work' In Other States

Right to work is deceptively named. It kills wages and destroys the middle class:

"Eight of the 10 states with the lowest overall per-capita incomes are right-to-work. And among the states with the highest rates of people without medical insurance (a sign of the quality of jobs available), seven of 10 are right-to-work. Eight of the 10 states with the highest poverty rates are right-to-work.”
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost