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Title: HAPPY LABOR DAY!!!
Source:
the interweb
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Published: Aug 31, 2008
Author: meh...
Post Date: 2008-08-31 07:22:05 by CAPPSMADNESS
Keywords: None
Views: 318
Comments: 33
...Hope you have a good one!!!
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#5. To: CAPPSMADNESS, ALL (#0)
Happy Labor Day to you. May you have a good one. I will be driving to Pittsburgh tomorrow to march in the Labor Day Parade along with both my sons who live and work there and are well paid members of a labor union. Each year I take turns marching with the one's union and the other's union. This year I will be marching with the Sheetmetal Workers' Union Local #12. Last year it was with Pennsylvania Social Services Union #668/Service Employees International Union. For those of you who are against unions, don't belong to a union, or beleive unions are a bad thing, I feel sorry for you. The little captioned cartoons above speak volumes. America became the greatest nation in the world because we had men and women who had the cajones to forn labor unions and get out from under the tyrantical business owners who think you are their personal property and therefore they have total control over you, your family and your lives. Union membership is on a steady decline running about 8% of the total workforce. down from the all time high of 26/28%. It is no wonder that the overall wages, benefits, and number of jobs have declined in direct proportion to the decline in union membership and the employers in America love it all the way to the bank. They won't stop taking, stealing money from their workers and moving jobs overseas. They won't be satisfied until like Andrew Carnegie, they have you working 10/12 hour days again, 6/7 days a week for 50 cents an hour. Laugh if you want, but as the union membership retreats, the whackos running our government gets bolder and bolder taking aim at our freedoms and many of our rights. Outside of unions, many Americans were not organized in an organization that the politicans feared. Now with the decline of unions, the politicans ended up in the crosshairs of corporate America and they are now their lackey's and corporate America is in control now; thus the decline of jobs and living standards for all Americans. All the good things that you enjoy in the workplace, whether you are union or not, came about as a result of the brave and fearless men and women who sought a better life and dignity in the workplace. Just as there is a war on drugs, a war on terror, there is a war on unions and unionism in America. One day in the not so distant future, I suspect it will be illegal to be a member of a union in America. We know the day is coming when they will be coming for our guns. Once those guns are gone, so too will be much of what we have been taking for granted and getting a free ride at the expense of those who came before us and made a better life for us. I know many of you work very hard and will enjoy this workers' holiday not really giving much thought what it stands for or should stand for. Enjoy your day off. My having a great Labor Day will not be great without giving my support to the working men and women of America by marching with the members of all the unions in support of all workers' union and non-union alike. For those of you who just have to know, no I am not a card carrying member of any union, but a heart carrying union member just the same. I know what's at stake here. HAPPY LABOR DAY to ALL!
You made a very good post with many valid points. Unlike many here, I don't oppose unions on principle. I don't see how anyone who believes in liberty could deny workers the right to collective bargaining. People will say that labor unions want something for nothing - more pay and benefits for less work. How is this different from corporate fat cats who also want something for nothing - more work for less pay?
Communist meddling in unions aside (and in general their vulnerability to manipulation), they have a role to play, and should be protected under our right to freedom of association. NAFTA is in part, about destroying the backbone of organized labor in protecting the rights of workers in this country. There may be better ways of dealing with labor conflicts than unions, but the monopolies created and supported by our corporatist system left workers with little alternative.
And, taking advantage of slave labor. Think the corporatists won't reduce labor to the same status if they can in this country? They're well on their way after breaking the unions.
Remember when bush and the neoocons worked to do everything they could to get congress to pass the FTAA? Thanks goodness there were still some in congress that told him where to put the FTAA.
Quite honestly, no. But a quick Google clued me in, if not bringing me up to speed. The Fourth Summit of the Americas convened on Nov. 4 (20050 under the ambitious title of “Creating Jobs to Fight Poverty and Strengthen Democratic Governance.” The U.S. ruling class, still smarting from its failure to win meaningful international and domestic support for its colonial adventure in Iraq and its inability to defeat the Iraqi resistance, had hoped to use the summit to advance its goal of strengthening and extending neo-colonial relations throughout Latin America. For Bush, whose administration represents the interests of U.S. transnational capital, the meeting provided an opportunity to seek hemispheric consensus for the FTAA. This trade agreement models itself on relations, like those in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), that have proved disastrous for the economies of underdeveloped and developing countries. As early as March of this year the U.S. government publicly revealed that it would not hesitate to use FTAA as a vehicle to undermine the national sovereignty of countries that resist imperialist maneuvers in the hemisphere.
WHAT WOULD THE FTAA DO? EXPAND NAFTA’S ATTACKS ON WORKERS AND THE ENVIRONMENT INCREASE CORPORATE POWER ERODE ESSENTIAL PUBLIC SERVICES DESTROY FAMILY FARMS www.alconstitutionparty.n...&task=view&id=83&Itemid=2 www.citizen.org/documents...Factsheet%20Jan.%2003.pdf www.jbs.org/index.php/iss...63-the-war-on-sovereignty The FTAA seeks to expand the NAFTA model to the entire western hemisphere, even though that model has led to massive job loss, a race to the bottom in labor and environmental standards here and abroad, attacks on local democracy and sovereignty, unsafe food and increasingly corporate control through privatization and deregulation. FTAA negotiations have been conducted under the strictest terms of secrecy -- corporations (including the now defunct Enron!), business groups and trade associations acting as official advisors to the FTAA negotiators have had full access to documents. However, the public and journalists had to wait years to see only a partial scrubbed version lacking vital information was made public only after a successful citizens campaign of inquiry. Despite the lack of transparency and democratic process in the negotiations, the governments involved are moving towards completion of the FTAA no later than 2005. They also are considering some "early harvest" agreements, which means that certain chapters would go into effect sooner — wreaking havoc throughout the hemisphere as parliaments are forced to change public interest laws and regulations to comply with corporate-led priorities. www.citizen.org/trade/ftaa/TAKE_ACTION_/ The Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) is a trade agreement currently under negotiation that would expand the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to include 31 additional nations in the Western Hemisphere. This massive expansion is currently being negotiated without meaningful public or Congressional input. The FTAA would not only extend the failed policies of the NAFTA which have eroded living standards, undermined workers rights, devastated family farms, and empowered corporations to challenge domestic public interest laws, but could also include new provisions to severely restrict the ability of federal, state, and local governments throughout the hemisphere to regulate both public and private services, or to provide essential public services. The effort to bind the economies of the Western Hemisphere into a single free trade agreement began at the Summit of the Americas, in December of 1994 in Miami, Florida. It was at the Summit that heads of state and governments of 34 countries in the region- all nations in North, Central and South America and the Caribbean except Cuba- agreed to complete negotiations for a Free Trade Area of the Americas by 2005. Unfortunately, the public and most Members of Congress are only vaguely aware this agreement is being negotiated, and their input has not been taken into account. Corporate interests, however, are actively involved; under the trade advisory committee system, over 500 corporate representatives have security clearance and access to FTAA documents while only a handful of civil society representatives have been given clearance. The FTAA would accelerate the global “race to the bottom” initiated under NAFTA: with the FTAA, exploited workers in Mexico would be forced to ‘compete’ with even more desperate workers in Haiti, Bolivia or Guatemala, as multinational corporations move in and out of the region with ease. This “race to the bottom” would also be mirrored for small farmers throughout the hemisphere as the devastating effects of NAFTA on commodity prices and concentration are amplified. In addition to including the extremely problematic investor-to-state provisions from NAFTA’s Chapter 11, the FTAA includes provisions on services and procurement which go far beyond those in NAFTA in terms of limiting the regulatory authority of Federal, state, and local governments, and boosting the power of corporations to challenge public interest regulations. The FTAA functions through nine negotiating committees: agriculture, intellectual property rights, investment, government procurement, market access, services, subsidies and anti-dumping and countervailing duties, competition policy, and dispute settlement. These committees meet monthly, or more frequently to push forward negotiations and establish commitments. Currently in the “offers” phase of negotiations in several committees, FTAA negotiators are responding to ‘requests’ by other countries, and establishing which sectors and regulations will be placed on the table or excluded from coverage by FTAA rules. . The next FTAA Trade Ministerial will take place in Miami, Florida November 20 and 21, 2003. Click here for more information about the Miami Mobilization. Negotiators hope to have a final text ready for signing by December, 2004, with a final deadline for implementation of the agreement December 31, 2005. Under Fast Track negotiating authority, if the FTAA reaches completion, Congress will only be allowed an up or down vote on the entire package, with limited debate, and no amendments allowed. The FTAA has sparked widespread opposition throughout the Americas. Massive demonstrations have been held in Canada, Ecuador, and most recently, nearly 10 million Brazilians voted in a plebecite to withdraw from negotiations. To combat this, U.S. negotiators have begun a “divide and conquer” strategy in which they lock in bilateral agreements with potential FTAA countries in order to facilitate the passage of the FTAA and set a “high” bar in terms of the rights granted to corporations in the agreement. The Central American Free trade Agreement (CAFTA) and the US-Chile Free Trade Agreement are two such examples of this strategy.
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Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest...Hope you have a good one!!!
#14. To: LACUMO (#5)
#21. To: Rupert_Pupkin, CAPPSMADNESS, LACUMO, bush_is_a_moonie, Ferret Mike (#14)
#29. To: buckeye (#21)
NAFTA is in part, about destroying the backbone of organized labor in protecting the rights of workers in this country.
#30. To: iconoclast (#29)
#32. To: bush_is_a_moonie (#30)
Remember when bush and the neoocons worked to do everything they could to get congress to pass the FTAA?
#33. To: iconoclast (#32)
Replies to Comment # 33.