Comments on: Mitt Romney’s Opponents Play Bailout Politics

By: tmferretti

tmferretti — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 20:24:45 +0000

NEWCOUNTRYMAN

I’m almost sure it was a new union and they ‘were” given compensation for time lost from the company because the judge ruled that way.

Yes, a union rep can be if an employee is fired and can argue for the employee, but he/she really has no authority to prevent the company from letting the employee go. If it is felt strongly enough the firing was uncalled for, the whole union could vote to go on strike but that seldom happens.

By: newcountryman

newcountryman — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 20:11:28 +0000

I recently talked to a UPS driver who was a union employee. He told me outright that besides stealing or breaking the law, it’s almost impossible to lose your job….whether you do it well or not.

By: newcountryman

newcountryman — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 20:09:03 +0000

Tmferretti; Well, I agree with everything you just posted except the part about out-sourcing. If the unions were stronger it might have made it worse. You can prevent a company from moving assets overseas….at least not yet. I didn’t hear about the Arizona case. Did you mean they tried to “form” a union or join an existing one. Anyway, whoever the employer was didn’t understand the NLRA law. It would seem to me that any laid off workers would be entitled to compensation if they won their case. Correction on my part; it was signed by FDR in 1935, but close enough.

By: tmferretti

tmferretti — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 19:52:26 +0000

NEWCOUNTRYMAN

Your right, the NLRA 1934 law signed by FDR applies. The problem is companies use intimidation tactics to stop their employs from unionizing. Companies have the right to fire or lay off anybody they want, union member or not.

Recently in Arizona, airport maintenance workers (janitors) tried to join the union. All employs involved were laid off for months. Finally the Federal District Court ruled the firings were illegal and the company had to take them back. Those people suffered financial hardship for months before the court ruled in their favor

I do the same job you do and do not belong to a union, but if I desired I would like the right to join a union if I chose without being intimidated. I also think it’s obvious, that if the unions were still strong, all this out-sourcing would have been much more difficult to do.

By: newcountryman

newcountryman — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 19:26:10 +0000

And no one in the right to work states where I worked as an aerospace contract engineer were they starving.

By: newcountryman

newcountryman — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 19:25:08 +0000

Tmferretti (2:03 PM); That’s already covered under the NLRA 1934 law signed by FDR. No company can legally prevent workers from organizing. If they do, they are clearly breaking the law. Can you sight an instance where this has recently happened? I believe this is a urban rumor. As an engineering contractor during my 28 year career, I have worked in both right to work and non-right to work states. Some workers in right to work states are very happy to not be a member. Unions are fine and certainly have their good points, but too many union bosses have become no more than politicians and an political arm of the Democratic political machine, more interested in their personal fortunes, while pretending to be otherwise. I knew when the NLRB was threatening to take Boeing to court over the plant in S.C. it was nothing more than self-serving posturing…and they knew they would lose if they ever did go to court. Bought Boeing shares big time last summer and was proved correct. The bottom line is they’ve become politicized with all the nasty backroom deals that comes with it.

By: tmferretti

tmferretti — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 19:03:10 +0000

NEWCOUNTRYMAN

Nobody should be forced to join any organization that they don’t want to. On the other hand no company has the right to prevent their employees from joining or forming a union. The company has every right to hire non-union employees, but if those employees want to join the union that exists, it’s in their right to do so.

I’m not saying that some unions that were not corrupt, but the majority are honest and defend the rights of their members. Ask any teamster, even under Hoffa Sr, they will tell you they were much better off than if they never had a union to begin with.

Yes unions like corporations try to buy influence in Congress, but ask, who are they buying influence for? The corporations do it all the time. Why should one set of rules apply to working people and another to big business?

Most working people who live in right to work states say this really a right to starve state.

By: newcountryman

newcountryman — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 18:45:58 +0000

I have nothing against unions. I do, however, feel that organized labor has no right to “force” a worker to join.

By: tmferretti

tmferretti — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 17:54:41 +0000

Any candidate that tries to tell you the unions do not give voice to average working American is full of s__t. Big business and their PACS speak for the rich and powerful, the unions speak for the working man.

I’ve noticed a commercial running on TV that demonizes the unions, they have a young Italian kid (looks like me when I was 15) shown bullying a classroom. It’s insulting to Italians and union members in general. This is how the corporations fool the American people into believing that the organizations that work for the middle class are criminals. Don’t believe it.

Romney and Santorum are from Michigan and Pennsylvania although they both act like they never have been there. These are hard working industrial states and the people aren’t buying their BS.

By: spike

spike — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 17:48:02 +0000

Is Rick a split-personality? He just agreed Wednesday night that there should have been a structured bankrupcy followed by a recovery that would have left GM stronger. Now Romney “turned is back” on Michigan. No wonder Rick votes against his principles; he is a liar.

Posted by: redryder
__________________
Rick is trying to convince voters he is the “true conservative”. The auto bailout was a liberal idea. If he criticizes Romney for being against the bailout, he’s campaigning from the left.

Obviously, Romney is surpassing Santorum in Michigan and it will be the end of Santorum’s day in the sun.