Best interests?

The issues are no longer clear cut. Maybe they never were, but now, I think, less so than ever. For example, are unions good or bad? There was a time when unions did a tremendous service, fighting for the rights of commenfolk. But today we seem to be in an age of me, me, me, and I wonder if the demands being made to supposedly protect the worker are out of line with common sense. Don’t get me wrong, I am not an advocate of corporate greed, and I would be the first to confiscate the obscene bonuses and out-sized salaries of the suits at the top. But take a look at this video report about Ford’s manufacturing plant in Brazil and tell me what you think. Is Ford doing “the right thing”?

2 thoughts on “Best interests?”

  1. Yeah, I have long observed that unions have become engaged in short term practices that are not good for the anyone in the long term. It concerns me, because who else do we have to protect us from corporate greed and abuse. I, myself, am a private agency foster care social worker (non-union) and we are taking a beating, being required to do the impossible and then being punished for either failure or lack of quality. It is insane. But then, you look at the quality and productivity of the state social workers, who are union, better paid and better protected, and it is no secret that we are better workers than they are, so private agencies are given the harder cases and beaten for the honor. Sad at best total burn-out insanity normally.
    I think one of the many good things about Obama, is that his election to this highest position demonstrates that a critical mass of us grass roots people see what you see, that things are more complex, that the problems are not black and white, so the answers can’t be either.
    The way, I’ve been phrasing it (for the last 20 years now) is that in righting the wrongs of this world, everyone has their own homework assignment. Yours might be different than mine, but nobody is off the hook. Everybody gets to be uncomfortable. Everybody is a necessary part of the solution.
    I like that Obama is involving everyone in the solutions to the best of his ability. I like that he has the insight to see the necessity of this inclusion. It sure beats being pontificated at by people who who clearly don’t give a damn about the well-being of the American people.
    The way I see it, we are in this multiply bad world state because of the lies and selfishness that “started” with the Reagan era and ground us down through both Bushes, with an ever embattled oasis called Clinton.
    But I digress, or do I? How will the economic changes that will sustain us be found and successfully implemented if unions do not join in? Doing their homework assignment and making their share of sacrifices?

  2. Nobody has come up with anything yet that replaces collective bargaining as an equalizer between the workers and the power of the employers.

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