"Kurt Ullman" wrote in message
m...


Especially in this context. If anything you note the
reasons for the concern. Unions can't make it any more on their own.

Not when the deck is stacked against them, no. Right-to-work states where
workers can get the benefits of a union's efforts without joining the union
and paying dues kind of makes it pointless for a union to even try to
operate. A pal of mine negotiates labor contracts for a big defense
company, he says its been quite boring for many years because the unions
know they can't push him too hard, he holds too many unbeatable cards these
days. So it's all about little stuff, picky details, but he's never faced
with big demands they won't back down from.

And when workplace accidents and fatalities turn out to be highest in RTW
states (which they are), well that's the way it goes, but they don't have to
pay union dues so the money they saved can go for Advil.

So,
they told their Dem lackeys that they must outlaw secret ballots using
the card system so that they know EXACTLY who voted against them.

Ah, no, the proposal isn't to do away with a *secret* ballot, it is to do
away with an election completely if more than 50% of workers sign union
cards, the argument being that the workers already voted when they signed
up. As it is now a vote to approve the union can be required if only 30% of
workers sign cards, so the proposed law actually raises that threshold while
eliminating the second step. I don't really care which way they do it,
either way more than half the workers have to ask for union representation.

As for the arbitration part, sure, if a company refuses to negotiate in good
faith and simply stalls the union, figuring they'll just operate without a
contract, the proposed law has a remedy for that. Companies will try that
BTW, because if they can stall for a year with a new union they can force
another election, and many companies try exactly that according to MIT Sloan
School of Management.¹ What would your solution be in that scenario (other
than never having a union in the first place)?

Of course under the corporate model (as arranged by their Republican
lackeys) if someone signs a union card, you can just fire him. The NLRB has
long been able to force an employer to accept a union with more than 50%
signup if the NLRB finds the employer's unfair practices make a fair
election unlikely, but of course if you don't think there is such a thing as
unfair practices by an employer you probably don't like that system either.

Those aren't trial lawyers, those are patent attorneys. What's
really hilarious is that you say the two are the same.

What's hilarious is that you pretend Monsanto doesn't have an ample supply
of both when they haul some poor farmer into court because Monsanto GMO seed
blew in from his neighbor's property and took root in his fields without his
knowledge. Or when they sue some guy with a seed-cleaning business because
the existence of his business supposedly encourages farmers not to buy
Monsanto seed every year, and so on.

Save your breath. Union bullying--bad; corporate bullying--just part of
the flow of commerce, nothing to see here folks, move along.

I am talking about the guys who, allegedly on my behalf, filed class
action suits where they get millions and I get nothin'.

You got what you lost, what's unfair about that? Did you expect to get a
pile of money when you didn't lose a pile of money? By what legal and moral
principles are you entitled to compensation for a loss you didn't suffer?

My favorite is
a class action against Verizon over some line in the contracts. The
attorney's got $3.4 million, Verizon promised to go forth and sin no
more,

Ditto when Sony got caught putting programming on their CDs that made their
customers' computers vulnerable to hacking. The class-action lawyers made
millions, the individual consumer who signed up got next to nothing (because
he'd lost next to nothing) and Sony got its fingers burned enough to think
twice in future, especially after the feds warned them they were risking
federal action. The benefit of class-action cases were individual losses
are tiny is to cost the company enough money that they (and others) decide
not to do that sort of thing again.

Believe it or not, but in a lot of corporate boardrooms they only thing they
care about is money, not whether people get hurt by their actions, but
whether those actions will backfire and cost them tons of cash. Remember
when Ford decided it was cheaper to let people get horribly burned by the
faulty gas tank on the Pinto than to recall the cars and fix the gas tanks?
THAT is why we have trial lawyers, although of course some folks like to
forget about cases like that and instead snivel that a class-action against
Verizon didn't mean they could buy a new car.

¹http://www.americanrightsatwork.org/... _25_2008.pdf