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Very interesting comments conversation going on here. It is interesting to me because all my life my father, being a Ford Company man, was union and a believer in the union and I can't think of any family members involved in a small business. I find your posts about your small business experiences throughout your life so very interesting.
posted by
TAPS.
on November 12, 2011 at 7:04 AM
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Small businesses are not the problem. Corporate corruption/welfare is.
You misunderstand, Justi. No histronics between my father and uncle or me by association. They got along well and I learned a great deal from them both. My point is that business and labor can talk, debate, give and take, compromise without destroying jobs or business. My uncle valued the union, believe it or not and my father respected the company's freedom to make a profit and prosper. And their right to award bonuses and extras to executives - but there wasn't the same climate of corporations taking ALL as there is now. No excuse to ship jobs overseas other than Greed.
I do realize unions have given themselves a bad name as time went on. Sadly, greed infects everything eventually but I feel we can restart the basic idea - worker's protection and a company's reputation and well being over the long haul - after all, workers doing well spurs the whole economy.
posted by
Raye09
on November 11, 2011 at 6:52 PM
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Re: Re: Re: Small businesses are not the problem. Corporate corruption/welfare is.
Raye09 I understand what and why you are saying what you are. This is coming from a scenario of family histrionics and not facts. I have seen this very thing played out over and over. You have a father you love and an uncle who disagrees with your father so they both have become more than simply a father and an uncle in your eyes. They now represent good and evil in your eyes. There are some Union Locals that make some advantage points toward the people, not on a National or international level that will give the best to all concerned. Social Security nor Medicare are direct appendages of the Union. The beginnings of the Union were for good. They have drilled into people that their original plan for good continued, it did not. It has an incredible history of violence, crime, theft and on and on. I have three children who belong to the Union and two are teachers and one is a nurse. I am very familiar with poverty both inside and outside. I still am. I am also familiar with too many families so many of who are corrupted by drugs and aolchol due to the fact they feel valueless. Why do they feel that way? Because they have no knowledge that the work a man or woman does is a great factor in his value as a human. In the days when a teacher could be fired if they had been in the system 50 years if they were not teaching we led the world in education, now we are a system of violence and cowardice. I am not asking you to change your mind all together, I am asking you to pull down that curtain of anger, hurt, distrust and look at your own value and take an unbiased look at the whole situation from another side and see if you can see anything other than a nanny state that has failed all over the world over and over.
Yes it is true so many can attest to that, millions in fact, if anyone was listening that companies on top of companies have gone bankrupt, had to move out of the country leaving this country hungry because of the Union. That is a truth, which when understood will turn this country back into a productive country that can put all who are able to work back and those who are not able will be helped, those who are simply unwilling to work will be left to their own devices and the prisons will be cleaned up to working establishments not exercise and movie watching prisons by then....
As for the company I am talking about. I accept your apology but what happened to me and my family was nothing. A whole city, churches, universities, all sorts of things for years had grown and prospered because of this company. All of it went to hell in a handbasket the company faced one of two-bankruptcy or off shore. Yes it was due to Union greed for many years forcing and enticing those around this one to spread out overseas and comeback and undersell.
Union is like a rotton apple it will ruin all things attached. I guess you heard about the murders today in the New York parK....
posted by
Justi
on November 11, 2011 at 6:28 PM
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Oh yes, small businesses are important to the equation.
posted by
FormerStudentIntern
on November 11, 2011 at 12:13 PM
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I guess I am a boring middle of the road sort of Gal.....Discussion and
debate is healthy.
posted by
Kabu
on November 11, 2011 at 8:48 AM
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Justi, your post is SO correct. My parents started a business 'midst 30's
depression & succeeded because there was no stranglehold by unions on their progress.
posted by
reasons
on November 11, 2011 at 7:50 AM
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Re: Re: Small businesses are not the problem. Corporate corruption/welfare is.
Unions have historically always been willing to negotiate and compromise; especially during hard times. My father was a local union leader so I do have some idea of what I speak. And his brother was a company man; made for interesting discussions and family dynamics. If unions didn't exist, then slave/forced and unpaid labor would be rampant. That has been proven. And if they didn't bargain and fight for the worker along with balancing keeping his/her job, they would have become extinct a long time ago.
That said, there is always room for improvement - business and labor wise.
I don't accept that corporations have no choice but to move jobs to a slave labor market. They did so and continue to do so because they are able to buy the complicity of the government and insure there are no or very few penalties.
I am truly sorry that happened to you, Justi. Thank Goodness there is Social Security and Medicare. 
posted by
Raye09
on November 11, 2011 at 5:46 AM
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Re: Small businesses are not the problem. Corporate corruption/welfare is.
I do understand the difference but you can't have one without the other. You see 9 tons a month of that bath salts by the little company was purchased by a 100 year old multi mega corporation that provided almost total employment for a city upstate New York, it also purchased little pouches to be used in another project from another little business like mine in Lousiana but it was forced out of the states by Union Agreements as it could no longer produce their products at enough profit to pay the employees. The companies who had gone to China to produce were cutting prices on products. The union salaries and benefits were too much for them to handle. They are producint in China now and I have no idea how many little businesses went out of business because of that. I provided one or more products for three such that left and I lost my business. I have no retirement, no benefits.... Just a sour taste of the turth about the Unions.
posted by
Justi
on November 10, 2011 at 10:20 PM
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Small businesses are not the problem. Corporate corruption/welfare is.
posted by
Raye09
on November 10, 2011 at 7:10 PM
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